


Sempiternal

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Ya'aburnee [7]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domesticity, Established Relationship, Facial Shaving, Fluff, Intimacy, M/M, Mentions of alcoholism, Puppies, Rimming, Trust, adoration, flashbacks to bad history, ya'aburnee verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-26 19:08:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3861328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Weeks passed without explanation, forces to pretend that nothing was happening at all, without a consoling touch given or received when Hannibal returned those mornings, and so Will twitches, jerks sharply at the unexpected sensation.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He knows this, though. He knows the snuffling sound against his ear and the warm earthy smell and the damp nose that buries in his hair and a sigh, short and breathless, escapes him.</i>
</p><p>Follows on from the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/103067">Ya'aburnee</a> series. It would greatly help if you have read the ones before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WarpedChyld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarpedChyld/gifts).



> A request and a desire, both, to revisit these two in their happy life together, now, after everything they have been through. Once in a while the boys let us in again, so we feel very honored that they have, for a glimpse.
> 
> We hope you enjoy it!

What possesses him, Hannibal is uncertain.

It has been a long time since they’ve kept secrets from each other, too close for them to stay, too close to even want to keep any. And yet Hannibal leaves Will alone in the early mornings, time and again, and disappears.

His excuses range from walking the beach, to needing the space to think, to tending to the grapes and yet none are true. And he can see, daily, as the false truths weigh on Will and add to the slouch of his shoulders, the set of his jaw. How day in and day out his smile gets sanded smaller and smaller still, when he accepts the words with one.

It’s been two weeks, and Hannibal returns early. Early enough that Will is still in bed, no smell of coffee in the house, no sign of movement at all. He hesitates, considers, before closing the door. He detours to the bathroom, returns. Across the open plan house he can see Will shift in bed, a distinct hardness to his movements suggesting they’re conscious, wakeful.

Perhaps it’s for the best that they are.

When Hannibal settles on the bed, Will doesn’t turn to him.

“You’re the one man I could never lie to and have it believed.” Hannibal murmurs, a fondness to his tone that isn’t enough to relax the tension in Will’s form. He gets silence. No questions as to why, no excuses or pleas for it to end. Nothing. Will has long since resigned himself to something happening, something unsavory destroying the tenuous balance they had finally built. It’s a pity, truly, that Hannibal has never managed to revert that paranoia to hopefulness and yet.

“It makes you near-impossible to surprise.” he adds gently, adjusting his position and setting something on the bed that immediately makes its way, with wavering steps and clumsy feet, to the man lying resolutely on his side, before sticking a wet, curious nose behind his ear.

Weeks passed without explanation, forces to pretend that nothing was happening at all, without a consoling touch given or received when Hannibal returned those mornings, and so Will twitches, jerks sharply at the unexpected sensation.

He knows this, though. He knows the snuffling sound against his ear and the warm earthy smell and the damp nose that buries in his hair and a sigh, short and breathless, escapes him.

"Hannibal," Will breathes, a warning and a question and an apology and a demand.

Slowly, he pushes up to sit, and finds his lap occupied by a small puppy. Brindled fur and a black muzzle, big dark eyes and an eager tail that wags so hard it carries half of her with it.

Nostalgia, forcefully forgotten memories, snare Will's breath in his chest and stop it cold. Years and years, since he'd last seen his own dogs. Years and years since he'd decided that, like so many other things, was at an end.

A self-inflicted cruelty to exclude himself from those things that might make him happy, knowing that at the time, the thing that had made him most happy in his life was gone from him.

"Hannibal? I don't - " Stammering, useless words, as Will extends a hand, fingers out, to let the puppy sniff them. She doesn't seem to care, and Will draws another deep breath when she puts her paws against his chest, to lick his bearded cheek.

If he’s honest, Hannibal doesn’t know either.

He had found her bundled in a towel on the side of the road, obviously the last of an unwanted litter that had either not been taken or had not escaped quickly enough. She hadn’t responded to him for the first few moments, too hungry, too cold to bother. But she grew used to his hand, grew used to taking small morsels of meat from his fingers when he offered it.

He had intended, in truth, to leave her to herself once she was strong enough to walk. He had not anticipated that she would follow him when she could.

He sits closer, leans just enough to press warm lips to Will’s temple, just under the messy curls that he’s let grow longer here, uncaring, before breathing him in.

“She’s certainly yours, with tenacity.” he tells him, “And we have the space.”

A reassurance, an invitation. Something old in a new place. Routines that begin somewhere.

Strays are common enough in Saint Lucia, but Will had never seemed to pay them mind. Ignoring them, in fact, or faking it until he passed them by to push away all the little hopes and old memories they brought out in him.

Unavoidable, now, with a whine and a wagging tail and clumsy paws in his lap.

Will ducks his head to hide the smile, bittersweet, that curves his lips.

He brings up both hands, to scratch behind her ears, to run the length of her - well-fed, with soft fur. She responds eagerly, all energy and movement, and Will lets her climb against him and turns his cheek into her fur and breathes her in and it’s Wolf Trap, again, a quiet morning shared together with a happy, easy warmth of dogs nearby and Hannibal sitting close against his thigh and Will rubs a hand at his eye, a quick gesture, embarrassed by the sudden rush of everything, all at once.

“She’s had a bath,” Will observes, finally looking up at Hannibal.

The feeling that snares in him when their eyes meet is like an arrow between the ribs, sharp and raw and so absolutely welcome in the sweetness of this particular pain rather than the betrayal for which Will had resigned himself so readily.

"A difficult thing to give her, when you resolutely resigned yourself to bed last week." Hannibal murmurs, lips tilting in amusement, before he draws Will closer, for one brief moment away from the new squirming thing, and kisses him once.

"She seems to have no problem with cars," he adds, standing from the bed to wander to the kitchen and begin breakfast. Something he is certain Will will not care for, and the dog certainly would.

"A very streetwise little partner for the shop."

Eggs today, he thinks, some salmon and spinach on the bread still fresh from the day before. The dog, he is certain, will find her belly quite full on top of the breakfast she's already been given.

Will watches Hannibal go, aching fondness he can’t put into words, for this man and this place that feels less like a dream and more like a reality every day that Hannibal remains, moving gently in the space they’re shaping for themselves, together now.

“I’d like to have seen that,” Will muses quietly, only then pulling his gaze away from Hannibal and looking back to the little creature romping around the bed.

“Hi,” Will says to her, drawing his knees up to his chest beneath the soft sheets, the day already warm despite how early it is. He holds a hand out to her again and she comes to it with absolute abandon, that funny little unsteady run that puppies do. She catches his fingers in her mouth, and he grasps around her muzzle, shaking her head just lightly before sprawling out from beneath the sheets, to lie on his stomach and watch her.

“What’s your name?” he asks her, and a smile curves across his lips. “You’re a local. Probably something French.”

He lays there for a moment more, sighing soft as she cuddles up beside him, and he reaches down to feel her fur beneath his hand and to scratch her ears and to breathe, for a moment, entirely lost in a feeling he hadn’t planned to ever experience again.

It feels like home and the thought is enough to finally pull him from bed. He gathers the wiggly puppy in his arms easily, holds her to his chest and lets her lick his face as he shuffles towards the kitchen, still speaking quietly to her, asking little questions along the way.

“How’d you find him?” Hannibal hears Will ask the puppy, blue eyes alighting on Hannibal with a gentle amusement. “You must have been pretty clever to convince him to take you with him.”

He sets her down, watching as she moves slow, hesitant at first in the openness of this space, but just as soon as a few cautionary sniffs are taken, she bounds openly through the house. Will watches, unable to focus entirely on making coffee, the first time he’s bothered to do so in a week, and feels his cheeks warm as he nears Hannibal, side-by-side at the counter.

“You found her?”

“I found a very ragged, very dirty towel,” Hannibal corrects, turning to Will and holding out a piece of salmon for him to take from his fingers, drawing against his bottom lip when he does. “And in my infinite need for order I made to remove it from the sidewalk near the house.”

Entirely true, a warm and familiarity of which settles comforting over Will. No more lies, no more omissions. Not in this space.

Behind them, the puppy continues exploring, comfortable now to slide herself into spaces too small to be accessed and out again, sticking her nose into open doors and pushing those open to explore within.

“I fed her,” he says carefully, checking the heat of the pan by wetting his fingers and flicking drops against the surface to watch it hiss, “And she stayed.”

He smiles, genuine, and turns back over his shoulder to watch the puppy stand on her back legs trying to reach the bed again, whining softly when the task proves impossible. He gently touches Will’s shoulder to stop him helping, and the puppy drops to the floor, backs up, and with a thorough wiggle of her entire back half, launches herself up.

It’s a scramble, but she manages, walking over to where Hannibal usually sleeps, used to his smell, and digging under the pillow joyfully, finding nothing. Within moments she’s on the floor again, trotting to them, sitting at Hannibal’s feet.

“And now she is entirely yours.” he says, as though nothing interrupted them, “And I will have nothing to do with her upbringing.”

There is a distinct smile in his tone, and one on Hannibal’s face. A white lie, almost transparent.

“So you say,” Will responds with amused doubt, peeling off a piece of the smoked fish and crouching. The puppy eats it without hesitation, sniffing after his fingers for more. “But you were always very good with them.” A pause to allow the memory to surface. “They liked you. Maggie loved you.”

He stands again, to check the coffee, brewing in drips.

“I have to bribe them.” A rueful smile, brief but bright. Hannibal has scarcely poured the eggs into the pan before Will tugs his shirt, a soft linen, beautiful but far removed from the stiff suits of Baltimore. He pulls himself closer to Hannibal, to press the length of his body against him and share a lingering kiss.

Always a distraction in the kitchen, happy to be one again as he loops his arms around Hannibal’s neck, tucking his face against his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “For not trusting. I didn’t know - I mean, I thought that,” he hesitates, stilling his stammer, and sighs. “I thought a lot of things.”

“It’s what your mind does,” Hannibal responds, soft, hands warm against Will’s back through the thin threadbare thing he wears to bed, when he wears anything.

“I had considered telling you.” he says honestly, turns his head to kiss the top of Will’s head, to nuzzle into the warmth of him and stay, watching the eggs with only marginal interest over Will’s shoulder.

At their feet, the puppy makes an impatient noise and leaves them alone, content to keep exploring the new space without them.

“But it has been a very long time since any surprise I presented you was a good one. I was hoping this would break an unfortunate habit, condition a better memory.”

The word is not used cruelly, here, ‘conditioning’. It is merely a term. There is no reason for manipulation for either of them, now, not here. Not since they had left the snow of Baltimore, the thick heat of Florida.

Here they have the beach, they have open space and a record player that almost always clicks, rather than plays, the records they forget to change on it. They have motor oil and overly expensive meat. They have fish smoked at home, they have wine.

Another kiss, Hannibal’s hand up to cradle the back of Will’s head as he holds him, as they gently sway together for no other reason than because they can, because they get comfort from the motion.

Days and days since Will had touched Hannibal, since he let himself be touched, as the tension between them grew to a head and Will shut himself down in increments, gradually quieter, eating less, sleeping more, a hibernation for a winter in a place that should have none.

Gone now, in a meeting of minds and mouths and bodies that Will presses against Hannibal more insistently, laying praise and apology on him with hands that curl through his hair and little sounds that break between their kisses.

It is warm here, and beautiful. A quiet house that finds itself becoming a home, jazz playing soft to fill the air and accompany the sound of waves so near their door. Work enough to keep busy, space enough to stretch and move and feel the way the scars have settled into their skin and to not resist their pull, but to accept it. They have suffered for this, paid their way to this place and its comforts in blood and anguish.

Will glances towards the puppy, eagerly attacking one of the slippers Will has left in the middle of the floor, and then nuzzles fierce against Hannibal’s cheek again, to feel him near.

“I keep waiting for you to leave,” Will admits, softly, no accusation in his words but for the one leveled at himself, unable to stop from going to dark places at the slightest pressure. “I think about what I would do if you did.”

Will doesn’t explain this, and Hannibal says nothing in return, content to just hold Will against him as the kitchen fills with the warm smells of breakfast cooking. He knows he will perhaps never be able to convince Will of his permanence in his life, and he knows it’s entirely his fault that that doubt is there in the first place.

The most he can do is what he does, what they have been doing.

A slow rediscovery of the other, of the space they now share and how they can continue to do that.

“Where would I go?” he asks instead, an old repeated question that never gets an answer, nor needs one.

Another kiss, gentle, just under Will’s eye, and Hannibal gently steps around him to keep the eggs from burning, keeping them somehow beautifully circular the yolk in the center in a way that suggests years and years of practice.

“We’ll need to register her,” he says instead, tone lighter, smile back, “She’ll need a name. Anything you feel a dog would need - you know much better than me.”

He grins when he asks, “I suppose there is nothing that would convince you to not allow her to share the bed?” he doesn’t sound much disappointed by this revelation.

“Where else would she sleep?” Will responds, blinking wide-eyed with confusion, the feint of which fades quickly when he grins, turning away to pour coffee for them both.

Healed, as he finds himself so often, by his doctor. Soft words and softer touches to ease away the phantom pains that plague them both, a little less each day.

Will presses a mug into Hannibal’s hand, taking his with him as he heads back towards the bed where the puppy has worked herself beneath the sheets, a happy lump moving beneath them. He kicks his slippers from the middle of the floor as he goes.

“Have to teach her not to chew on things,” he remarks to himself, sipping the coffee and setting it aside to peer beneath the sheets, grinning suddenly at the bright puppy bark that greets him.

“Hello again.”

Will reaches beneath and scoops her out, cradling her against his chest again and settling back cross-legged on the bed. Quiet murmurs pressed against her fur, against her puppy ears, little conversations one-sided and content, to let the warmth settle in rather than the chill that had threatened them.

The music and the light, filtering through big windows and curtains shifting in the breeze, the house laid open without hidden rooms or secret spaces between them, and now this, another presence there already familiar despite having only just met.

“It feels like Wolf Trap,” Will says, softly.

Hannibal watches, over his shoulder when he’s not working on the food, and gives Will his space. He watches as the man’s hands splay over the warm creature who sits contented one moment and squirms the next. She’s not a particularly attractive dog, but Hannibal had not been able to leave her in that towel, there no way that they will be able to leave the puppy again.

He slices the bread, thick slices to set against the plates, a home-ground pesto spread on top before the salmon is folded against it, a careful twist to appear far more elaborate than it is. The egg on top, cracked pepper, dill to garnish.

It’s a showy breakfast, amusingly so, and Hannibal takes a long drink of coffee before taking up both plates on one hand, cutlery in the other as he snares his mug to deliver their food to its inevitable messy end within the animal currently kicking its little feet against Will’s stomach.

“She may need a brother.” he comments, setting down his mug next to Will’s to at least keep the hot liquid away from the danger of the dog, “To settle her energy.”

Genuine surprise registers on Will’s face, a slight smile hidden behind a thoughtful scratch of his beard. “I suppose that since her upbringing is entirely in my hands, then that’s up to me,” Will responds, pleased. "Maybe even two." A grin, seeing Hannibal's brow raise just so.

He scoots back across the bed to lean against the headboard, taking the plate from Hannibal with a murmur of thanks. The puppy squirms her way into Hannibal’s lap eagerly as soon as he settles on the edge of the bed, nosing after his food, and forcing him to lift the plate above her and away.

“Not to be overbearing in my newfound responsibilities,” Will offers around a mouthful of toast, “but she’s young enough to learn how to sit really easily, especially with food as a reward.”

He sets his plate on the nightstand, tearing off another piece of fish. Sitting up on his knees, he presses just above her tail, lightly pushing her wiggly butt to the bed, and instructs her clearly to sit. She bounces right back up again to pursue the food in his hand and Will repeats this a few times, allowing Hannibal enough time to eat at least.

Finally, a minor breakthrough, as she hesitates before jumping up again, tail wriggling against the sheets.

“Good,” Will grins, feeding her the bit of salmon and scratching behind her ears, his own food forgotten again, coffee cooling unattended. He stretches, wedging his toes beneath Hannibal’s thigh. “You never had to bribe them. They always just listened to you.”

"Only because you had trained them first." Hannibal replies gently, watching the puppy climb over Will again. "They trusted you. You trusted me."

Proxy.

As though on cue, the dog climbs over to Hannibal now, nosing towards the smell of his breakfast, paw gentle against his hand as though to goad him to share. Will watches, curious, amused, finally taking his own breakfast and chewing slowly.

Hannibal regards the small animal until she slows with her pawing. Then she sits on her own, a graceless plonk, and tilts her head. Without a word, Hannibal passes a piece of his breakfast.

"Perhaps it's patience." He says softly, "you have it infinitely. They feel it, understand."

The puppy whines, stands, paws again, and Will scoops her up, turns her to rub her tummy until she squirms and stretches. Hannibal smiles, watches, before running a hand through Will's hair.

"Eat." He murmurs.

It's rare enough that Wolf Trap is mentioned at all between them. A particularly deep wound that's never quite healed for either, despite the years that have passed. The memories of squeaky floorboards and silent snowy mornings, of shared warmth and the first feelings that perhaps there might be a future for them both.

There is again, now, such a possibility, despite all the blood they had to draw to find it. Slowly, the wound has started to stitch together again, the stinging pain of it fading day by day.

"Remember the staring contests with Maggie?" Will asks, knowing there's not a memory of that place, that very brief time that they don't both hold tightly to. "When I couldn't sleep, sometimes, I would watch her inch closer to you on the bed, trying to get as near as she could without waking you up."

"I always assumed she did and you let her stay anyway. Let her think she was being sneaky about it."

Will slides closer to Hannibal across the bed. Settling against his back, leaning into him with an arm around him, hand splayed across his stomach, toying absently beneath the buttons to feel bare skin, soft curls of hair beneath his fingertips. He keeps his other hand on the puppy who wiggles along on her back, curling his hand against her stomach and smiling to see her paws twitch in happy abandon.

"It'll be nice to have her around the shop," he murmurs, lips brushing warm against Hannibal's back. "Take her out on the boat when I go fishing. She can keep you company in the garden."

Will presses a kiss to the back of Hannibal's neck, eyes closed.

A new life growing steadily from the ashes of the old.

Will pulls his plate closer to eat slowly, as pleased even now that it's cool as he was when it was warm. A murmur of thanks again, of how good it is, never missing a chance to compliment Hannibal's talent in this. The puppy takes the opportunity to lazily roll to her feet again, finding a spot to plop down alongside Hannibal's leg. Will imagines Hannibal, humming with dismay at finding a heap of towel to remove from where it landed near the trees that line their walkway. Finding then within it a squirmy puppy, eyes meeting for a lengthy regard before lifting her carefully, momentarily mindless as to the dirt and fussing over her with gentle admonishments.

The pull Will feels in his chest tightens so hard it nearly hurts.

"You have a doctor's compassion," Will remarks, fondly, "for finding things that need care, and helping them. Feeding them. Giving them a chance they wouldn't have had before."

"I'm glad you found her," he considers, and adds, rueful, "I'm glad you found me."

Hannibal turns his head, just enough to rest his cheek against Will's hair, gentle, warm, close. 

"Just as she did," he says softly, "so you were put unavoidably in my path. And I cannot thank you enough for not letting me veer off it."

Both inexplicable, beautiful creatures that Hannibal had never expected to need in his life, want there. Yet here they were both were, pressed up against him. Soft and trusting despite the blows life has dealt, the scars it left.

He wants to spend all day here, the doors open to the garden for the dog to explore, letting in warm air that smells of the ocean and the sweetness of fruit. He wants to lay Will bare and kiss his skin, breathe in the warmth and reality of him, feel his fingers splay in his hair, feel his breath hitch...

"Do you have a job to finish?" He asks gently, mild suggestion in the tone but it's enough.

A slight smile, one that Will doesn’t turn away or hide this time, as has become habit. He sets his plate aside again and wraps both arms around Hannibal now, mouth pressed against his shoulder, absorbed in the feeling of soft fabric and warm skin beneath his lips.

It’s been days and days since they’ve been so close, separated by walls Will started to erect with unexpected speed, walls that now must come down again. He’s eager to do so, to feel contentment settle in rather than contempt, and the implication in the question is easily understood.

“Not until the end of the weekend,” he responds, affecting a tone of casual disinterest, “I suppose I could go work on it now, though.” Another grin, faint, as the mild bluff is responded to with a note of disapproval, and Will turns his cheek against Hannibal’s shoulder to watch the puppy twitch in sudden sleep beside them.

“She needs a name.” Will’s hands spread across Hannibal’s chest, finding buttons there and slowly working them undone. “Something from one of your operas, maybe.”

"Mm," a soft sound, pleased, though Hannibal makes no suggestions as to a name yet. He allows Will's fingers to work the buttons open, but gently touches his thigh to keep him sitting and still as he gathers their plates to take to the kitchen to wash later. The puppy wakes, rolls into the warm space Hannibal had occupied before he stood, and barks, tail going so fast it blurs in the air, and Will gathers her to him.

This was real, this was here. So much more than the physical; the wriggling puppy, the gentle sounds from the kitchen as Hannibal does everything to ready for the dishes to be cleaned. It's the promise of permanence, the promise of understanding and patience that Will may have but that Hannibal has more of. It's security.

Will sets the little creature to the floor and she scampers off to find Hannibal, who gives her a gentle stroke behind the ears and unlocks the glass garden door to let her free. Their private garden is fenced on all sides, one gate leading through to the more wild brush and ferns before spreading in a clearing where the beach lies. Shared but mostly their own as well. She can't go far.

When Hannibal returns, he leans in to kiss Will without a word, one hand against his face in a gentle caress, the other pressed to the bed for balance.

A little sound of surprise as Hannibal leans over Will, and he finds himself pushing back further onto the bed to tug Hannibal atop him. Untidy sheets and the smell of puppy and coffee and the ocean all around them, Will’s arms wrap loose around Hannibal’s neck and he grins, nose brushing Hannibal’s.

“You’ve always been full of surprises,” he murmurs, wry, before relenting with another kiss. “This is a good one.”

An easy movement to roll until they’re on their sides, entangled, legs twining together and arms surrounding their other and bodies meeting in unhurried contact, a need to confirm, to feel, to know that they are here together now, a need that’s yet to abate even months after they arrived.

“Now every time you’re secretive, I’ll assume you’re bringing home another one,” he grins, catching his lower lip between his teeth. “You’re setting a bad precedent.”

Hannibal smiles with his eyes, the telltale crinkling in the corners that speaks volumes even when his expression otherwise remains stoic.

"Perhaps you're not wrong." He tells him, keeping his eyes on Will’s as the other skims warm hands over Hannibal’s chest, over his collarbone, his neck, his jaw. A gentle swallow moves his throat and Will’s fingers seek there too, tracing the rise and bump of his adam's apple.

It's an exploration, another commitment to memory. In the months they've shared, together, now, Hannibal has noticed Will does this once every few weeks, as though to convince himself that Hannibal is still here, to convince himself that he himself is. Grounded in the moment not hallucinating through warm tendrils of whiskey and pain.

When Hannibal leans closer, Will lets him, eyes closing and lips parting in soft permission.

This.

Them.

Now.

Hannibal makes a soft sound in his throat and presses closer, fingers between the soft sleep-warmed strands of Will’s hair.

Almost kissing again but not quite, not yet, as Will completes his affirmations with eyes closed and lip caught between his teeth again. His fingers fan across Hannibal’s mouth, always a source of fascination for him, whether in horror or in worship. He traces the rise and fall of his lips, the curves that he knows better than his own, now, the teeth just past them. Finally he sucks in a hard little breath at the feeling of Hannibal’s tongue pressing against his fingertips, just enough to make Will’s cheeks flood with color.

Now, now Will kisses him, finding again whatever it is he looks for in those moments, chasing his fingers with his mouth and driving closer still, until there’s no space between them, nothing but a few pieces of clothing and flesh and bone to separate their hearts, each increasing in time, every movement synced as Will runs his hands through Hannibal’s hair to unsettle it and Hannibal’s fingers twist into Will’s shaggy curls. A breeze rustles the curtains and Will sighs, eyes scarcely open, foreheads pressed together, hips as well in a gentle shove.

“Anything?” Will asks softly. Half-conversations continued from years past, as fresh in their memories as if it were moments before.

"Always," the word is soft between them, breathed, felt more than heard, but it's there, it's enough for them. Hannibal catches the gentle oh that falls from Will’s lips, swallows it, enjoys it, presses the same word back to him in brief brushes of lips. 

He shrugs out of his shirt when Will’s hands slide up to remove it, uncaring where it ends up as long as he can press close against Will again, feel the way his heart speeds beneath him.

He directs his kisses lower, down over Will’s jaw, under his chin, relishing in the soft bend of his body, still slim, though softer now. He kisses his neck, brings his lips together at the apex of a collarbone, hands ahead of his mouth, down to grasp the hem of Will’s shirt and tug it up.

A hand splays against the scar, years old now but still sensitive, still enough to have Will suck in his stomach.

Kiss me there.

Hannibal swallows, shifts up just enough to peel the shirt from Will, toss it away.

Will reminds himself to breathe, pushing his hair back out of his face as he lays back, to watch Hannibal press kisses, open-mouthed, tender, against his chest. He lingers, as ever, over his heart, smiling slightly against Will’s skin when he feels it move faster still.

Shivering, goosebumps along sun-browned skin, Will catches one of Hannibal’s hands as it moves up across his chest now. He pulls it to his mouth, lets fingers tug soft against his lips, and presses a kiss to Hannibal’s palm, keeping his hand there with both his own wrapped gently around it.

A noise, always the same restrained mixture of desire for what’s to come and discomfort with what is, when Hannibal grazes a kiss along his scar. An act he goes out of his way to repeat each time they’re together, an apology without end, as he presses his mouth gently from one side to the other. Will squirms a little, fidgets and twists but does not dislodge him, instead pushing his fingers through Hannibal’s hair to tangle there, blushing fierce.

He kisses the scars striping Will’s arms and face in much the same way, when he’s near enough to them to do so, seeking forgiveness long ago given, and to show Will through actions that have always meant so much more than words how beautiful he still considers him to be.

Will sighs, arching his hips upward as Hannibal tugs gently at the waistband of his thin cotton boxers, and a sudden worry catches him, stilling both their motions.

“Do you think she’s okay out there?” he asks, glancing towards the door to the garden.

Hannibal stops, lips parted and feeling the heat of Will’s skin against them, before he sighs, feels Will shiver with the sensation of cool air against the thin skin under his navel. Then he turns his head, looking where Will is, hearing nothing but the sound of morning birds and a gentle scratching of a small canine figuring out she can shift dirt with her paws.

When he turns back, his lips finally meet skin, feel Will shiver beneath them.

Hannibal pulls the boxers lower.

“I suppose,” he muses, the tone Will associates with pretentious dinner parties filling his mouth to spill over trembling skin, “I could go and check. Bring her back in. Set her loose on the house. On you.”

He kisses the curve near Will’s groin.

“Like this.” he kisses lower.

Will arches up onto his shoulders, grinning despite his moment of reservation and looping a leg up over Hannibal’s shoulder.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” he responds, an eager noise unfurling from him to split his words before he can finish. “You stay here. There. Stay there. But, lower.”

The bloom of scarlet across his cheeks spreads lower, to his chest, his shoulders, breath a little heavier now. Will tastes winter on his tongue when their eyes meet across the length of his body, the sweet crispness of snow far from the biting bitter cold whose howling winds seem less fierce each day. A happy memory, this, obscuring the years since by pulling another bend from Will’s back, as Hannibal lingers precariously close and waits, amused, to watch Will squirm in anticipation.

“Please?” He drapes an arm over his face and laughs behind it. “Don’t make me beg.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” comes the innocent reply, Hannibal finally peeling the boxers off of Will and tossing them over the edge of the bed. “This morning.” he adds, tone dark, pleased, eyes up to watch Will’s own widen just enough, before taking him into his mouth.

Will is always most pliant when Hannibal presses his mouth against him. When he can taste the subtle undertones of everything that Will is, from the exhaustion of sleepless nights to the coffee smell that lingers on him, to the tacky oil and natural earth, to the salt of the ocean just past their garden.

Now, Will tastes like warmth, like home, leg curling over Hannibal’s shoulder as he groans in pleasure and settles on the bed, hands alternatively bunching sheets and sliding up over Hannibal’s shoulder to his hair to tug there.

Hannibal remembers when Will was more open to pleasure, when his voice would be allowed free, loud and clear and perfect in the cool rooms of Baltimore, or soft and helpless, near-sobbing in the pillows at Wolf Trap. Hannibal loves Will’s voice, the way it turns words, the way it manipulates them beautifully.

Will twitches against Hannibal’s tongue and he takes his time pulling off, allowing his teeth, just gently, to graze the head as he pulls back further still, curls his hands under Will’s hips and lifts them to bring his lips to his hole instead.

The record playing before has since clicked to a stop, unnoticed some time ago, and the only sounds now that fill the space are breathless pants, the sound of birds in the trees that surround them, the waves steady and consistent as heartbeats soft against the shore. Will’s moan breaks the quiet, a high, pleased sound shaking free as he curls his leg tighter over Hannibal’s shoulder, meets it with the other.

Raised up nearly onto his shoulders, an elegant curve still found effortlessly beneath Hannibal’s touch, his mouth, his astute awareness of how best to leave Will breathless.

And as his breath leaves him, in gasps beneath the broad stroke of Hannibal’s tongue, in whimpers weak and aching when he sucks and kisses his skin, so also leave the phantom pains, the scars, the blood, the years wasted until they’re as they were once, young and fierce again, lost entirely to the other - their other, the only one that has ever fulfilled them each so entirely.

“Please,” Will begs, now, of his own volition, for Hannibal to keep going, to give him more, harder, to stop, to let the rush of sensation ease away again. For everything, anything, always. His fingers curl around Hannibal’s jaw, bending to reach, to feel the movement there and his eyes roll closed with a low groan, before even this is not enough.

He tugs, coaxing Hannibal back up, letting his legs move to slide and wrap around his hips instead. Will settles beneath him, into a rolling, eager rhythm, gasping as his length brushes Hannibal’s own.

“Yours,” he promises, kissing slow and adoring along Hannibal’s neck, thrilling as the older man sighs against his cheek.

Hannibal smiles, slow, turns his lips to brush Will’s face, the hair soft, now, in a permanent shadow Will refuses to shave and Hannibal secretly adores.

“Mine,” he agrees, pleased, warm, a hand coming down to replace the slow, shallow stroking of his tongue just to feel Will shudder from the sensation against him. “Mine to hold and cherish and surprise,”

He pulls back, just far enough to reach for the nightstand, for the small tube of lubricant there.

“Mine to tease and make dinner for,”

He warms the liquid before sliding two fingers into Will, relishing the gasp, kissing his throat to feel it vibrate there when it becomes a moan.

“Mine to entirely give myself over to,” he breathes, kissing lower, spreading Will’s legs wider as he sinks against him.

“And yours entirely to own.”

Will’s sudden grin is parted by a gasp when Hannibal presses against him. A slow push to part him open, bodies working together in languid shifts and settlings. Sliding an arm across his eyes again, Will laughs, heart pounding. Hannibal catches his wrist and presses kisses to the scars there, before gently pressing it to the sheets above Will’s head, to catch the light in his eyes and see the unrestrained smile strip the years from him and to hear him laugh before he ducks his head against Hannibal’s shoulder.

A shyness, reemergent, and one that Hannibal hopes to ease away from Will again with enough time. An infinite patience for such a thing, renewed each time he hears that sound added to the gentle melodies of their home together.

“Mine to listen to music with, to help with in the garden,” Will breathes, sliding his arms beneath Hannibal’s to hold him close, to feel his weight heavy and familiar above, the soft hair against his chest and the steady heartbeat moving ever slightly faster. “Mine to tell you how beautiful your cooking is,” he sighs, kissing just beneath Hannibal’s jaw. “And you are.”

Another little laugh, another tuck against Hannibal’s neck, mouth pressing warm. “Mine to make messes for.”

“To trust,” he adds, words hitching as Hannibal moves inside of him, followed by a faint grin. “I’m working on it.”

"I'm patient." Hannibal murmurs, smiling, nuzzling against Will’s neck.

He pulls his fingers free, presses a very soft kiss to Will's lips and strips his own pants off, away. Will looks beautiful beneath him, spread and languid and flushed. He looks relaxed, smile widening at the scrutiny, moving to turn away.

Hannibal makes a soft noise and kisses against his temple.

"Trust me," he urges, gentle, waiting for Will to look at him again, "look at me."

Will’s brows draw in, the slightest pull of dismay passing over him like a shadow before he can stop it. A ruddy blush hot beneath his beard, grown long but not enough still to hide what he would like, and after a few heartbeats pass he turns his face back towards Hannibal.

He tries to drape his arm across his face again, a new habit, but stops himself before Hannibal can. Curling his hands together above his head, tension in the corners of his eyes, he makes himself, finally, meet Hannibal’s eyes for longer than a glance. It forces him to draw a quiet breath, the exposure of the position, of this openness.

“Hannibal,” he breathes, unsure of what to say to finish the sentence, working his lip between his teeth again instead.

"Beautiful," a murmur, a reassurance, before Will is given brief reprieve as Hannibal presses another kiss just under Will's eye, over his cheek, to his jaw.

Hannibal shifts, enough to press against Will to hold just there. When he presses in it's slow, a careful push as one hand comes up to cup Will’s face, their foreheads together, the other up to curl with Will’s fingers.

"Will," an answer, a prayer, it's hard to tell and it barely matters. Not when they're this close, Will’s body curving up against Hannibal, his legs up to hold them together, lips parted on gentle gasps of pleasure.

He holds his breath as Hannibal presses into him, lips parted silent and head pressing back against the bed, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, legs sliding fast up around Hannibal’s hips to ease the sweet familiar stretch that gathers at the base of his spine and finally forces a low moan from him, fingers tightening where they’re laced with Hannibal’s and chest heaving in quick little pants.

Hannibal stays there for breaths and breaths, to allow both to feel rejoined, both to feel whole again, eyes meeting from so near that Will brushes his nose in a gentle nuzzle against Hannibal’s own. A sleepy grin, pleased enough already.

“I’ll have to trust you on that.”

Kissing the amusement from the twist in Hannibal’s lips as he begins to move, as unhurried as before, to feel every inch of each other aching slow in a beautiful torment that begins to pull more sounds from Will. Youthful little noises, grinning gasps and shuddering sighs, whimpers when Hannibal adjusts his angle to drag slow over Will’s prostate, causing his fingers to clutch tight again and his free arm to cling across Hannibal’s shoulders.

“Just like that,” Will sighs trembling, close enough to finish already after so long without contact, resisting to feel that coiling pleasure twist deeper, longer, to take and give all he can. “Please, just - don’t stop.”

Little murmurs, nonsensical and whispered rough against Hannibal’s mouth, hints of the voice that used to sob and moan and whimper so easily perhaps stirring again. With time. With patience.

Hannibal keeps pushing, slow, languid thrusts, matching Will’s gentle pants with soft sighs against him. He feels perfect, alive and breathing, roiling and twisting and seeking more beneath him.

He doesn't stop. Keeps Will held in this state of near euphoria, holding him back but not forcing him to hold. He murmurs words back, murmurs things just as nonsensical, and just as meaningful between them.

Perfect, mine, Will, please, yes, stay still for me, just for me, just a moment longer, oh...

He can feel his own pleasure coiling, turning within him as well. He presses close, lips parted on low, helpless noises of need against Will’s skin.

"Come on, Will."

“Yes,” Will breathes, always yes, always as his arms sink deeper around Hannibal and he feels his body curve and release and he gasps, moaning, yes.

Warmth spilling between them, sudden and unexpected, surprised enough that Hannibal’s soft coaxing words can tug it from him so gently that Will grins, wide and unabashed. He doesn’t hide it this time, squeezing Hannibal’s hand still pressed against his own, pushing his other back through Hannibal’s hair to watch the gentle slackening of his mouth, eyes kept open just enough to see Will beneath him as that coiling unfurls with a rough sigh.

A stillness between them, but for pounding pulses and quickened breaths, until Hannibal starts to move and Will keeps him close.

“Don’t go yet,” he whispers, to lay beneath him for a moment more, beneath the comfort of his weight and warmth and sweat and sighing breaths between kisses, pressed to Will’s temple, his cheek, across a scar, his mouth then, a gentle thing soft, sweet.

“Love you,” murmurs Will, sleepy and pleased, flushed and trembling.

Hannibal pauses, the words so known yet never spoken, they taste warm from Will’s lips, an unusual new flavor to lick and savor from him. How many times was this implied between them, how often understood. 

Hannibal nuzzles against him, just as close, just as warm together.

"I love you." He responds, voice low and gentle, the words soft in French. Every word meant, pressed to Will’s skin to his lips... The kiss lingers, not deep but so soft it feels like electricity between them.

Hannibal smiles.

"In every language you can pull from me."

Will wriggles a little, content, warmed by the words, to finally feel them spoken, and the soft smile splits into a quick grin.

“All forty of them?”

A quiet hum of agreement, amused, as Hannibal catches his mouth in another kiss.

“Even Japanese?”

“Even Japanese,” Hannibal responds, and though the words that follow are unknown to Will, the fondness with which they are spoken is not.

Theirs has always been a language of tone more than words, of feel rather than definition, and there was uncertainty, pain, in those moments in which one or the other tried to take a literal meaning rather than the spirit of the thing itself.

Comfortable now to communicate in half-spoken or unknown languages, finding warmth beyond the words themselves, as Hannibal continues to whisper soft against him. He returns each one, in English or in Creole, grin brightening each time until he finally declares, self-effacing as ever, “I’ll have to start practicing more.”

Will pushes a hand back through Hannibal’s hair, as they shift to lie side-by-side instead, and he doesn’t duck away from the close attention, doesn’t tuck his head against Hannibal to hide his face. Forces himself to stay still, stay here, with Hannibal.

He chews his lip, hesitant, and finally asks, “She can sleep in the bed, right?”

A laugh, brief and bright and pleased, and Hannibal presses his forehead to Will’s. Outside there is still no sound of displeasure from the pup, content as she is to explore on her own.

"I shan't fight the inevitable." He tells him, soft, resigned and far from unhappy with it. 

He settles his hands against Will's hair, his face, strokes there, soft.

"My Will."

As though no time between them was lost at all, within this moment. A new place, but without the pressures of Baltimore or Wolf Trap. A new home, with no need for anything but truth between them. Years disappear in a heartbeat, rendered irrelevant by the feel of Hannibal’s hand pressed against Will’s cheek, the turn of Will’s mouth in a devout kiss against Hannibal’s palm.

For a moment, Will imagines that snow is falling soft against the windowsill, and there is no one in the world but them.

Only us.

“Always.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a funny thing, fear - he used to share a close intimacy with the sensation of clammy hands and a racing heart, of adrenaline like tinfoil on his tongue. Only when Will’s eyes linger a moment longer on the razor than everything else does he realize how far he’s come, even as he feels a crawling sensation across his skin.
> 
> _Do you trust me?_

They should have called her ‘morning’. 

The pup wakes in the dark, always, be it winter or summer, cold or sweltering. And she never wakes Will.

Hannibal has accepted his duty of dog-minder seemingly without upset, body clock quite closely linked to the little bundle that nuzzles against him with soft whines every morning to be taken outside.

They’ve developed a routine, now, Chiot streaking her way across the back garden while Hannibal follows at a slower pace, checking the grapes, the other fruit that grows seasonally. Sometimes he just stands and waits, eyes up to the sky filled with more stars than anyone could fathom counting. It’s peaceful, here, gentle, and while the pup hasn’t grown much bigger in the months they’ve had her, she has become the center of their little world on the island.

This morning is no different, the pup exhausting her early morning energy in the garden before Will wakes to take her for a long run on the beach. Hannibal waits, arms crossed and eyes up to the sky that grows lighter earlier, now that summer is here. It’s cool but no longer cold, enough to warrant long pants in bed but no shirt. Hannibal stands until he feels soft paws against his shin, pressing to him and gently padding there until he looks down to the wide eyes and the blur of her tail.

He can never help but smile. Reaching down to scoop the creature under one arm and bring her back inside to toss to the bed for her to make her way to waking Will as Hannibal takes a shower.

More often than not, he finds himself with company there, drawing out the necessity to a pleasing distraction, so he doesn’t even turn when he hears the door close behind Will as he enters the bathroom, just smiles and tilts his head under the warm spray.

Like most mornings, Will gently scoots the little dog outside the bathroom door and closes it behind himself, clucking and murmuring to her softly as she whines. Like most mornings, he peels out of the shirt and shorts he sleeps in. They drop unminded to the floor as he goes, yawning.

Unlike most mornings, he doesn’t immediately head to the shower to join Hannibal. He pauses, with a glance to the mirror that runs the length of the counter, and the hand that was scratching sleepily across his stomach hesitates.

Unlike most mornings, he notices the scar beneath it, curving elegantly from rib to hip, and those that litter his body upward. The small circle in his shoulder. The pale stripes along his forearms. The dozen or so - he’s never really counted - that criss-cross his cheeks, his jaw, graze up across his lip. They never tan, really, far paler than the rest of him, made golden in the island sun.

His bare feet sticking softly to the floor as he goes, Will approaches himself. He presses a hand to the counter and lifts the other to his beard. Grown first from neglect, kept for how it gradually became long enough to cover much of the marks, even where the hair itself didn’t grow in again. Pushing his fingers through it to feel the ridges of tissue beneath.

If he presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek, he can feel one scar’s other half, where the mirror shard cut straight through.

He doesn’t.

Instead he pushes away to join Hannibal, arms slinking cool around his middle as he allows both the water and Hannibal’s palms to push the hair from his face. He smiles, parts his lps to the morning kiss, feels the way Hannibal’s fingers slide lower, over his cheeks, down against his jaw. Perhaps he’s never noticed, perhaps he has never wanted to, but Hannibal makes sure to feel every scar as he goes, a gentle touch, reminder, as though paying penance even still for what happened so long ago.

“Don’t run yourself ragged when you take her out this morning,” Hannibal murmurs, smiling when Will opens his eyes again, before glancing past him to reach for the shampoo, pour some into his palm before soothing it over Will’s scalp in a gentle massage. “You have a customer coming for his engine later this afternoon.”

“Tell her that,” Will responds, gently chiding. He presses close again and rests his forehead against Hannibal’s shoulder, eyes closed as the water carries the soap down his face. “You know, you missed your calling with psychiatry.”

He feels the curious gaze without needing to lift his head to see it, adding, “You make an excellent secretary.”

Soft kisses graze Hannibal’s sun-and-water warmed skin, his shoulder, a little further down to his chest where Will finds circular scars that match nearly his own.

_An inch more to the right._

He lifts a hand to press against Hannibal’s heart, thumb gliding across the mark left so terrifyingly near it, and when the shampoo has rinsed clean from his hair he leans in to kiss Hannibal’s cheek as well. Slender arms slip around Hannibal’s neck - leaner, perhaps, but with muscles returning to him from work and good food and all the care that Hannibal can give him.

It’s been a long time since he’s had a morning like this, where he wakes up thrashing, tangled in sheets heavy with sweat, the sensation of warm damp smother caught suffocating around him. When the light reflects through the big windows that overlook the sea and hit panes of cabinetry inside, and rather than a lovely refraction, Will sees mirror, sharp as knives, sees a curved knife that he never saw in the moment itself. He’s grateful when these mornings happen and Hannibal is out already, time enough to peel back the sheets to let them dry, to let his shaking ease and try to sleep again, hoping in absurd desperation that he does come back.

That he won’t be left alone again, in a house on the water, with little more than the horror of his nightmares and a bottle of the cheapest, hottest whiskey he can find.

He couldn’t say how long it’s been since his last morning like this, but he knows exactly how long it’s been since his last drink, and it’s a startling realization that drives him a little nearer, face tucked into Hannibal’s neck.

“How are the grapes?” he asks, trying to sound less doleful than he knows he must.

“Close.” Hannibal responds, easing his fingers through slick hair before taking up the washcloth to start washing Will’s back, gentle massage, light nails until he has Will arching against him like a big cat, and he can’t help but smile.

“We will have peaches this year,” he adds, “The blooms litter the garden, cover it like snow.”

“Chiot’s a fan of them.”

“Quite.”

Hannibal’s hands slip lower, slide to wash Will’s sides and up under his arms before gently turning him, pressing his face lightly against Will’s bearded cheek and washing over his neck, down his chest, careful over the scar on his stomach.

He never brings attention to it, never unless Will is fidgeting, unless he is seeking silent validation of his permanence. Then he will kneel, nuzzle the skin, kiss it, ignore all quiet whines of protest and touch his lips to every inch of it until Will knows that he is whole. Here, he washes the skin clean, hums against Will’s cheek and kisses there.

Rather than fold in on himself, than shrug away from the touch in a body that he woke up feeling must not be his own, Will makes himself stretch, instead. His back against Hannibal's chest, he lifts his arms and lets them drape back around Hannibal's neck to keep him close.

To keep them close together.

Tilting his cheek against Hannibal's, rubbing gently with the soft hair caught between their skin, Will hesitantly says, "I think I need a change."

It's only when there's a lack of movement, where Hannibal's hand rests just beneath his belly button, just below the scar, that Will realizes how his words sound.

"No, not - Christ," he swears, and leans his weight back into Hannibal almost entirely. "I haven't had coffee yet. Bad night. I'm thinking of shaving my beard." The words fall out all at once and he braces, unsure of what to expect from this, unsure of why he thinks he needs to expect anything at all. "It's going to be so hot soon, and," he hesitates, words spilling each time he tries to simply take a breath, "it's heavy, you know. I just thought -"

Hannibal drapes an arm around Will’s shoulders and holds him close, resumes the slow cleaning of his skin against his thighs, between his legs, feeling Will shift with the touch but not taking it further.

“I think the dog will worry where you’ve gone, if that beard goes away,” he jokes, warm against Will’s ear, settling his other arm around his middle just to hold him for now, both under the warm spray of the shower just standing together.

“She recognizes you,” comes the smug response, and Hannibal smiles wider. There have been weeks where he has allowed himself the luxury of forgoing his strict regimen, allowed the shadow over his jaw to grow darker, warmer. It is rare, but Will had found it highly entertaining when he had.

“I suppose an animal can learn,” he allows, letting Will go and passing him the cloth to continue to wash himself down, before accepting the soft treatment against his own skin as Will faces him and strokes sure fingers over his chest. They’re quiet again, Hannibal not giving his permission as Will had not asked for it, but a strange thing coiling in his belly that warms him, soothes, at the thought of Will wanting to return to himself, to how he was before Marathon, before -

“I’ll need to borrow yours, I don’t have a shaver.” Will interrupts his thoughts softly, tilting his head in amusement. Hannibal feels his lips quirk.

“I have a razor,” he corrects.

Will’s hands pass to Hannibal’s back, rub softly across the small of it where sweat gathers in the heat, up to his shoulders, strength returning there, too, after so long in relative disuse. He swims, often, far out into the water and back again, taking laps of increasing speed until he finally emerges back onto the sand breathless and flushed.

Will keeps time for him, occasionally, but only tells him if it was faster than before.

“A razor’s not enough for this,” Will considers. “I guess I could trim it first, and then try. Maybe I’ll just go buy a shaver. What’s that look for?”

A blink, in return, before Hannibal settles his arms over Will’s shoulders, and Will works the soft, soapy cloth along his arms.

“Not a safety razor,” responds Hannibal, bemused.

“A straight razor?” He hums in response, and Will snorts. “You would.”

Easier to talk about this than what it means to leave this part of him behind, to shed another remnant of a life that now seems so long past. To reveal himself, to Hannibal, to others who will no doubt whisper and wonder. To learn to accept this, maybe, as he’s come to accept his others, no longer hidden when he runs or swims under cumbersome shirts.

“I’ve never used one before,” admits Will.

“You are very lucky that I have,” Hannibal replies, submitting to the gentle cleaning as Will had to his, he turns his head to kiss Will softly when he leans closer for Will to wash lower down his back again. For a while more, they don’t speak, just touches and white noise of the shower between them. Languid kisses and shared breaths.

Will reaches to turn the water off before leaning out to grab Hannibal’s towel first.

Outside the door, they can hear the gentle whining of the puppy, most likely sitting on her bottom, back legs splayed and front ones between, tail beating at the ground impatiently. She wants her run, has her own routine to stick to in following Will around in the shop all day before returning to lie belly-up on Hannibal’s lap as he reads in the garden and Will makes his rounds.

Hannibal amuses himself in remembering that Will once had seven dogs, and wonders how long it will take before their little house is filled with more soft and snuffling creatures like Chiot.

He pulls Will close to kiss him again, a brief touch of their lips together before a deeper thing, intimate.

“This evening,” he says. “There will be no time constraints then. We can set dinner to cook slow, send Chiot to the garden.”

Will watches him, the long strides that carry him away towards the sink, but catches his hand before he can get too far. Rough fingers twine with soft and squeeze, just gently.

"I might change my mind," Will says. He speaks in French, perhaps without realizing how readily he slips into it now, on the island where it's spoken in a patois more familiar to him than Hannibal. Perhaps without realizing how much he relies on it for moments when he's feeling uncertain, ungrounded a little.

Hannibal squeezes in return, and offers a faint smile and French in kind. "Then we will find another way to occupy that time, instead."

Releasing his hand first, Will allows himself a moment more to take Hannibal in, unfaltering in the slow cadence of the life they fought so hard - against themselves, against others, against the world and its designs - to have here, finally, together.

The sound of claws scraping against the door pull him back, and Will fits his towel around his waist. She's through the door as soon as it opens, and right into Will's waiting hands.

"Beast," he murmurs against her fur, holding her wiggly body against his chest and turning towards the affectionate swipes of tongue as he goes.

\---

Will is home by three, covered in oil and trailed by a dog covered in peach petals, tongue lolling and eyes bright. Hannibal regards them both before sending Will to take another shower with a brief blink and turn of his head, and catching the little mongrel before she can follow.

He wonders what strange mix of languages the little pup will understand when she grows up, considering how both he and Will address her in every language they both know. The water starts, and Hannibal carries the pup to the kitchen sink to dust her off and wash her paws under the running water, despite the wriggling resistance he suffers for his efforts.

Will takes the car and Hannibal takes the dog, both quiet and comfortable. It’s dark by the time Will gets back, delivering completed projects and servicing engines at people’s homes on call. Hannibal has dinner on the stove and the dog in his lap and gives Will a feigned look of long suffering before he takes up the furry bundle from him and Hannibal can stand to set the stew to simmer.

In the bathroom he has set up one of the bar stools from the kitchen, a heavy towel and the brush and bowl as well as the razor itself. In the bowl is a thick cream that he mixes with practiced hands and quick turns until Will comes to lean in the doorway and he gives him a smile.

“Have you changed your mind?” he asks.

The easy distractions of the day fall away, the pleasant physical exhaustion of his work now suddenly heavy through Will’s shoulders. It’s a funny thing, fear - he used to share a close intimacy with the sensation of clammy hands and a racing heart, of adrenaline like tinfoil on his tongue. Only when Will’s eyes linger a moment longer on the razor than everything else does he realize how far he’s come, even as he feels a crawling sensation across his skin.

“No,” Will answers anyway, clean and bare again but for the boxers resting on his narrow hips. He steps closer and finds the override switch he’s always had for when his chest gets tight and his pulse burns like battery acid, imagines it as being rather dusty now as he switches it and brings himself to press a hand to Hannibal’s cheek.

_Do you trust me?_

The thought forces a distant, odd sort of smile to his lips.

“I trust you,” Will tells him, leaning in to share another lingering kiss as he is now. His question is carefully worded, more carefully considered before he asks, brow lifting, “What if you don’t like it?”

Hannibal parts his lips, feels Will’s move against him with the question before he sighs, lets his eyes open just enough to see him.

“Then you will allow it to grow back,” he tells him gently.

It inevitably would, perhaps more than once, before Will allowed it to stick, allowed the new routine to come into play in his life, a new look and a new way of looking. He leans in to nuzzle against Will, feel him nod as his throat clicks gently on a swallow.

He waits for Will to sit, passes by him with a gentle touch to his shoulder to close the door to the garden, leaving the little animal outside to play in the grass by the soft light of the solar torches along the path.

When he returns, it’s with a smile, a softening of the corners of his eyes, a narrowing of them in pleasure, not amusement.

“Chin up,” he commands gently, and when Will obeys, leans in to apply the cream to his skin.

It’s a soft brush, natural fibers and well used over the years, stroking over Will’s skin up his throat and over his jaw, to his cheeks. The smell is subtle, pine or sandalwood, masculine and natural, slightly cool with mint.

Will watches Hannibal, rather than his own reflection. Focuses on the feel of Hannibal’s hands gently turning his head towards one side, and then the other, rather than how his own tremble with uncertainty.

“You turn everything into a fucking ritual,” Will murmurs fondly. He catches Hannibal’s hand before he can get too far away, and holds it for a moment in his own before releasing it.

Before he releases much more than a simple touch, for this. For him.

It was a useful transformation once. Shaving off the familiar scruff of his life in Wolf Trap - in Baltimore - had been as well, and Molly had delighted in the lack of bristle burn when she held his face in both hands and kissed him for the first time without it. Letting it come back, hide the reminders of that life, had set himself apart from the Will who lived a quiet, domestic life in Florida, when it ceased to be quiet or much of a life at all.

“Adaptation,” Will says, a half-thought shared only that much, and spoken as much to his own reflection as to Hannibal, a reminder that though the choice was rarely his own, this time it is.

Hannibal gives him a look, long, gentle, before taking up the razor and encouraging Will to keep his head back with a soft palm to his temple. He says nothing, doesn’t reassure or contradict, just gently sets the razor to skin and draws it up, over Will’s throat and up just under his jaw, turning just slightly to wipe the blade clean on the towel at his side, before ducking his head and kissing the smooth skin left in its wake.

Warm lips against skin cooled by the air, a smile as he feels Will tremble, before moving to draw the blade over skin again.

Swathes of warm skin, a kiss for every motion, always gentle, always reassuring, intimate. A mourning for what was taken, a welcome for what Will is giving.

Hannibal takes his time, he doesn’t rush, flicks his eyes to meet Will’s for a lingering moment before returning them to his work, allowing the blade to carefully navigate the arch of his neck, over his adam’s apple, and up to the tip of his chin.

There is a morbid curiosity, perhaps, to watching this pale skin - guarded from sun or touch or warmth beyond what his beard provided - reveal itself in strips unseen in so long. As he moves to Will’s jaw from his now-bare neck, Hannibal is careful to skim only gently over the first scar he finds, and Will feels a tug in his chest that he knew it was there - that he knows them all perhaps better than Will had realized.

It’s only when the first one is revealed entirely and Will can follow the path the glass edge carved along his skin that he finally closes his eyes for a moment. Focuses, only, on Hannibal’s fingers and lips following the path of the blade that now works across his skin instead.

He hesitates for a moment, at Will’s chin, where another curve of tissue bisects it up to the bottom of his lip, and then proceeds with a careful navigation around it. Gentle fingers work through Will’s hair as Hannibal wipes the blade clean with the other hand, and the shiver that courses up Will’s spine is so intense as to be visible.

Will had held his arms over his face, unable to do more than that when he was knocked nearly senseless beneath the weight of the enormous man who took him to the ground. It was only when the makeshift knife slipped off the bones of his forearms, into the man who held them aloft as long as he could, that the marks were left. Again and again, he had shouted for them to run. Again and again the glass came down glittering silver and red in front of his eyes.

“Christ,” Will swears, opening his eyes again, no respite in his mind when he tried not to see the scars revealed each in turn, and he takes sanctuary instead - again, always - in watching the man that he loves so intensely that it defies all logic.

This man is not the one who sent the dragon to him.

This man is not the one who hissed grinning from behind a foot of barricade.

He is not the one who saw no life for them, and so decided it was better for them to have no life at all.

“You weren’t wrong,” Will answers his thoughts, but meets the curious look of Hannibal instead and adds, smiling faintly, “it can always grow back.”

Hannibal watches, blade held aloft but far enough away not to do Will any harm should he turn. Then he sets it softly against his upper lip, short, gentle scrapes, that the only sound between them, before he leans back to wipe the razor once more.

“It will,” he assures him, pressing closer to kiss Will’s lip gently, eyes closed as he feels Will’s shaky exhale against his skin.

He does not rush even when Will starts to tremble more against him, the more skin that is revealed, the more scars that Will can see. He does not stop, and he does not waver, every scrape of the blade followed by a kiss so gentle it’s like a breath.

With the final stroke, Hannibal sets the blade into the sink, the water running cool over it and bends to gather another towel from the drawer, small, soft, that he presses beneath the water and squeezes before gently wiping Will’s face clean of all the residual cream.

Before he turns to look at himself, Will plucks the towel away and tosses it to the sink. He holds Hannibal’s hands in his own and presses the man’s palms against his cheeks, soft, smooth even where the marks ridge his skin. The sound that Will makes is like a shudder expressed in voice, a shock to the system, to his memory, to feel Hannibal’s hands against his bare skin like this.

Holding one hand with both of his curled around, Will turns his face to Hannibal’s palm and kisses. “Thank you,” he murmurs, to feel his breath and words warm there, before finally releasing him.

Will stands, without yet looking at himself, and regards Hannibal for a long moment, his voice still quiet. “How is it?”

Hannibal tilts his head, watches Will stand, does not force him to confront the mirror he so avidly avoids. Instead he just looks. Sees the man who had once sat in his office and drew a cigarette from between his lips, a coil of smoke following, who had smiled and narrowed his eyes, had carved into the body of Randall Tier just to feel that power flood through him. The man who had grinned around his spoon eating cereal from Hannibal’s Chinese bowls. The man who would pour himself from bed to change the record when the needle clicked.

The man who had pulled his gun, face distorted in pain and tears, and had misfired, again and again because there was nothing else he could do.

Hannibal swallows.

“Very different,” he admits, allowing his expression to ease again to the now. Reaching to rest his palm on Will’s cheek again and stroke lightly over the raised scars now stark and light against his skin.

“My Will.”

He grins, a furtive, shy thing - rarer now than it used to be, but wholly genuine - and Will slides past Hannibal's hand to wrap his arms around his middle instead and draw tight against him. They kiss, no more than lips held together, until Will finally releases a sigh kept deep in his lungs from the time that he woke up, and likely much longer than that.

"Yours," Will agrees. "Always."

Will tilts his head towards the mirror, cheek against Hannibal's shoulder, and observes himself. Face half-hidden where he rests it, he can still make out the scars that plunge and dive across his features. They are every bit as ugly as he had imagined they would be, illuminated stark against his tanned skin - the marks of monsters who wished to make him monstrous, too.

"I can tell them it was a boating accident," he considers, and then adds with a snort, amused, "'this was no boating accident'."

It is surprising, though, to see the curve of his own mouth again, the slight smile that appears before he turns away from Hannibal to step nearer the mirror. Hannibal remains quiet, almost unmoving in his stillness, as Will studies himself. Turns his head from side to side, to see himself so young again, but older, too, beyond the scars. Creases formed with age and weathering, unfamiliar to Will on his own cheeks, around his mouth so often downturned in annoyance.

But not now. Now his expression shifts to one of quiet acceptance, a serenity in knowing he can't change the past or make the marks go away, but even as he turns to Hannibal, he swallows hard and stills his shaking fingers against the counter.

"Will you kiss them again?"

As he did not rush before, Hannibal has no need to rush now. One step needed to get to Will, hands soft against the skin, up into his hair before he leans in to press their foreheads together, gentle, close, just resting. Then he brings his hand down to rest beneath Will’s chin, tilts it to bring his lips to the scar against Will’s own, a soft kiss, lingering, before pressing further, an imprint, a reminder.

Hannibal doesn’t need to look to know that Will’s eyes are closed, that he’s walled himself inside his own mind for the moment. He does not lay siege to it, just ducks his head to kiss Will’s chin, his cheek, following the scars like the roads on a map as he feels Will tremble hard beneath him, bring up soft hands to rest against Hannibal’s chest, to splay over his heart and feel it beat slow and steady, and try to match his own to it.

Over and over them Hannibal kisses, presses his breath, his lips, his soul until Will’s arms wind around him again, pull him close and shift enough that they can kiss, mouths familiar, Hannibal’s hands beneath Will’s arms and up over his shoulders as Will’s are around his neck, holding on and kissing him desperate and warm.

“Anything,” he whispers against him, breathless, feeling himself smile as Will does, elated, excited, hands sliding to circle Will’s middle and press warm fingers to his sides. “Always.”

The touches Will needs to feel, pressed perfectly where he needs them. The words he needs to hear, spoken softly against his ear without hesitation. It’s hard not to wonder at the ability for Hannibal to still know, so precisely, what is needed most after all that time, and Will feels his heart swell as he looks up towards him, and without losing his eyes, snares him by the hand to lead him from the bathroom.

“How long do we have before dinner?” Will asks, backing towards the bed with their fingers wrapped together.

“Long enough.” Hannibal does not hide his pleasure now, doesn’t mask it behind minuscule movements of muscle, but his eyes crinkle in the corners easily and Will tugs him near enough to spin him lightly to the bed, where he sits obediently. Dark eyes alight on the man standing in front of him, possessed by some curious other self now, released with each stroke of the razor against his skin.

“Do you remember -” begins Will, but of course they do. They both do, all of it, and some days it’s all they can manage. He works his lower lip between his teeth instead of asking, head ducked to watch Hannibal through his fringe, the years erased to a guileless, wide-eyed curiosity, and the hint of a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. He presses his fingers across his stomach, upward over his chest, to his neck where he grasps and slinks forward, standing in a straddle over Hannibal’s legs.

He slips his free hand through Hannibal’s hair and twists his fingers in it to bring the man closer to his belly, blushing pale rose across his nose and freckle-spattered cheeks. “Kiss me there.”

Hannibal does, mouth spreading warm across Will's stomach, just where he was asked to place it, touching the scar, the soft line of hair disappearing into his boxers. The sound Will makes is high and needy, and he frames Hannibal's face in his hands to turn his eyes upward.

"I want you to tell me this time."

A blink, soft and gentle, and Hannibal's eyes narrow in a smile. He can feel Will’s muscles tense, but no longer in fear. Tremble, but no longer in distress. He is unfurling, returning to a time so warm and beautiful that he can almost feel the fog from his breath in the cold of winter in Wolf Trap, can almost hear the whisper of plastic where glass should have been.

"Come closer,” he asks, eyes up to see Will, worshipful and adoring, leaning back enough for Will to settle his knees comfortable on either side of his thighs where he sits. Fingers gentle in his hair, pushing the straight strands back from his eyes, bending them softly behind his ear. He looks so much younger, face clean-shaven, more so than when Hannibal had known him. He will probably let it grow to a gentle dusting around his mouth and chin, as he had then. Hannibal feels his heart lightening at the thought.

"Closer."

He leans back, feels Will come with him, until he rests on his elbows and Will settles his arms on either side of him.

"Bare me," he says softly, his own shirt and loose pants already overdressed compared to how Will rests above him. "Touch me."

He thinks of cool hands and a hard counter, devious smiles and reassurances murmured against his back, when Hannibal had felt entirely content to bend and allow Will anything.

"Do you remember -" he echoes, doesn't finish, leans up to draw his lips over Will’s and breathe out harsh against him when one hand drops to his shirt to work it open.

Hannibal allows his pulse to rise, allows himself to feel every motion and every breath.

“Of course,” Will responds, faint smile curved beneath rosy cheeks. He turns Hannibal’s head aside with a nuzzle, to kiss his cheek, back to his ear, caught lightly between his teeth. The shirt, unbuttoned, is pushed back with palms against the bare skin beneath to reveal it all, entirely, and his nails curl into the softness of Hannibal’s stomach.

“You want me to -”

“Yes.”

Will’s smile broadens into a grin before his teeth catch lightly against Hannibal’s throat instead, and he raises up enough to let Will slide his shirt back from his shoulders, shrugging out of it for Will to toss aside. The quickening pulse beneath his tongue, his lips, brings them to close and suck a shadow against his sun-browned skin, a quiet possession of someone he knows to be his, entirely, and to whom he has belonged for just as long.

Brought to his knees with a rough hand in his hair in the office, the scent of burnt floorboards filling his nose.

Straddling Hannibal’s lap in the chair across from him when he finally broached that distance to bring them together.

Bones and blood, stairs and counters, harpsichord and harsh whispers.

A flood of memories, kindnesses and cruelties alike, all necessary to have brought them here where Will can press a hand to Hannibal’s heart and feel it race for him alone.

“I love you,” Will breathes against his ear, as his hand skims down further to unfasten his pants and tug them slowly down his hips, and his own hips turn slowly, untouched, in the air above Hannibal.

A breath, released too fast, lips pulling up into a smile so open it draws lines of stress entirely from Hannibal’s face before his hands come up to frame Will’s, push gently into his hair and move him down to kiss.

Three words that throb through his veins, words he feels with every touch and every breath, that rarely find voice but always find understanding with the other. Reassurance and truth, cemented together, flawless, just as one is to the other.

Hannibal shifts further up the bed, up until his head rests on the pillows and Will slinks up on top of him, arching languidly when Hannibal slips his fingers beneath the elastic of his boxers and slides them from Will's skin. Bared, together, now, lips meeting with a new heat, new fervor that pulls deep at memories and desires neither will let go.

He does not yet say the words back.

He knows Will can feel them returned with every twist of their bodies together.

Will slips his knees between Hannibal’s own, sliding them across the sheets to spread them a little wider, expose him willing and rumbling low against Will’s ear as Will presses a grin against his cheek. He lifts a hand to Hannibal’s cheek, follows the carved curves of it to his lips, and marks a path across them with fingertips before parting them to slip inside.

“Suck,” Will whispers, nuzzling into another kiss against his temple when a shudder, unrestrained, brings Hannibal’s hands to his waist.

A gasp is stolen from Will, heart racing. Hannibal pulls Will’s fingers into his mouth with another purr. Will follows the edges of his teeth, spreads his fingers over them, and pushes them a little deeper still to stroke against the movement of his tongue, lazy undulations that send Will’s pulse pounding deafening in his ears.

“God, your mouth,” he murmurs. Will has always loved it, held a boundless fascination for the things it can do, and he watches heavy-lidded as Hannibal’s eyes close and his cheeks hollow around the gentle push and pull of Will’s fingers between his lips. Will’s body moves almost outside of his control now, languid rolling hips that bring their lengths together in brushes that send goosebumps along their skin like electricity despite the warm island air that makes them both so flushed already.

When Will finally, reluctantly, slips his fingers away, he kisses away the damp trail that lingers on Hannibal’s lower lip, bringing his hand down between Hannibal’s legs and requesting softly, “Spread a little wider for me.”

He does.

The stretch is unfamiliar but not painful, rarely has Hannibal allowed this to anyone but the man touching him now, had made his reputation clear quickly in prison, found no one seemed interested in violating him once he had spoken a few choice words. And here, now, he sighs, arches up and keeps his eyes on Will.

He is a beautiful thing, wild and alive, a survivor, the only one of his kind and all the more precious for it.

The more Hannibal had thought, throughout the years together, throughout the years apart, the more he realizes that he did not create Will, Will had always existed this way, he just chose which scales to shift to change a pattern, to adjust and move in such a way as to present the correct version of himself. But with Hannibal he never had to. Always walking the tightrope of tension until his mind relaxed and his body responded.

And now the tension only comes in bouts, in early mornings when he knows Will thinks he cannot tell.

Hannibal draws his knees up and tips his head back, relishing the soft lips against him, the gentle teeth, and whispered words as fingers push deeper and spread and curl just enough for him to groan, smile.

“Again,” he requests softly, “Please.”

"So polite," Will teases, another kiss pressed to Hannibal's cheek before he sits back on his knees, tucked beneath the man's thighs, and watches his fingers work. A gentle but steady spread that times his indrawn breath with Hannibal's own, pulling them slowly free only to press them back in just as languidly. He reaches, spreads a hand over Hannibal's stomach to feel the muscles twitch eager beneath it, and curls his fingers upward, rubbing firmly and delighting with a florid blush as Hannibal's cock jerks in response, and his lips part on a low groan.

Rocking his body forward, his touch driving deeper, wider, more filling inside Hannibal, Will steals the next sound with a kiss. He sucks gently on Hannibal's bottom lip, teases it between his teeth, sighs against his mouth and presses their tongues tangling together. Hips shift into the air in time with the steady movements of his fingers, with the rhythm of their kiss, their pulse, heating in a rush between them.

"Tell me what you want," Will laughs as the kiss finally parts, breathless, his hair draped across both their faces, already a sheen of sweat across them in the warmth they generate themselves, and the humid air around them. Younger and younger, he seems, more carefree perhaps without the barricade of his beard between them, noticing his scars less now than he did before when there was such a tangible reminder of them.

Hannibal draws his arms around Will’s shoulders, pulls him close and sets his teeth gently against his shoulder, just holding on as the delicious shivers skitter over his skin, up and down his back.

“You,” he admits, gentle, “deep and slow. Remind me.”

That morning in the kitchen, Will had been nervous, had asked again and again, if that was alright, if it was what Hannibal wanted. He had pushed in deep and flattened himself against the older man, pulling their pleasure through in tandem with the other, both breathless and sated and smiling after. Will hadn’t questioned his genuineness since.

Now he lies against him, confident and needy, seeking with fingers and tugging with teeth, and Hannibal hooks his ankles around Will’s own, sliding closer that way, pushing his fingers in with the motion and gasping at the sudden pressure.

“I want you, Will, now.”

With his lip bitten between his teeth, eyes heavy-lidded as he gazes down at Hannibal, Will withdraws his fingers slowly, his own breath hitching in sympathy with the sound that Hannibal makes as he feels himself suddenly empty.

"Anything," Will insists softly, his hands soft against Hannibal's thighs. "Always."

For a moment, Will imagines that he can hear the strains of _Blue in Green_ , crackling softly from the record player, no sound of waves against the shore but rather the rustle of wind through the evergreens, a world silenced by snow but for the sounds they made in it.

He shivers, when Hannibal's eyes meet his own, and offers a soft smile in response.

A quick preparation, no desire for a rough taking for either of them right now, when the setting sun illuminates the curtains caught ghostly in the breeze, and Will settles near again, heavy over Hannibal, a kiss following where his hand spreads over his heart.

With only their breath to steady them against each other, Will guides himself in, gently, aching slow as his hips roll forward and his eyes drift closed and he ducks his head with a pleased shudder, to feel Hannibal tight around him. A give and take, as they've always had, made beautifully simple through the expression of their bodies.

"Is it okay?" Will asks, slipping a hand under Hannibal's knee to hold him steady, spread, the other hand beside his cheek where he can still stroke softly with his thumb.

Hannibal turns into the hand, seeking warmth, softness there, as his lips part on a pleased laugh that manifests as a sigh, contented and comfortable.

“Yes,” he kisses Will’s palm, allows himself to be turned to kiss Will’s lips, brings his hands down to slide over his thighs and up his back again, a gentle caress, a soft touch of nails against skin to feel Will arch with it, turn into it, pull gasps from Hannibal with the change.

It’s slow, a deep joining of intimacy, lips barely brushing as their share air instead, sweat slick between their stomachs and chests, slippery as Hannibal lifts his knees further, presses closer around Will’s sides.

It’s easy, push and pull and gentle touches, memories rekindled and new ones pressed in alongside, as Hannibal kisses along Will’s face, brushes his scars with fingertips and lips and tongue, brings a hand between them to touch the one against his stomach, pulled taut and raised and long, feels Will shudder with it, the worship of it, the adoration.

The discomfort from those touches has faded from the fight it used to cause between them, Hannibal subduing Will with stronger arms and softer words, as Will snarled and fought against him until finally relenting, still and morose, to let Hannibal pay his penance and be done with it. Though he still tenses, little flickers of muscle he can't control, Will now shivers too, from the sensation of familiar fingers against new nerves and numbed ones. Even as he feels the touch-not-touch of fingers stroking softly against his face, Will turns into the touch and sighs.

And only in those moments, when he catches Hannibal watching him, a humbled adoration in his gaze, does Will feel like less of a monster. Like something beautiful, perhaps, worthy of such reverence.

The one who lived, every time when he should have not.

He breathes Hannibal's name, the sound tight with pleasure as he moves inside of him, quickening with clever turns of his hips, seeking - watching - until he brushes that spot within Hannibal that causes his fingers to tighten against Will's thighs, and then he grins.

"Ask," Will insists softly, sliding still-slick fingers between them to tease along the length of Hannibal's cock where it rests stiff against his stomach. 

Hannibal bucks up, thighs tightening around Will, voice breaking free in a low, pleased groan as his cheek color slightly, just beneath his eyes.

“Please, Will,” he breathes, voice hitching and lips tilting up in another smile as Will continues the delicious, slow torment, pushing in deep, fingers cool against his cock as he strokes him up and brings him to trembling. Hannibal’s fingers pull red lines down Will’s back enough to leave the marks that will fade with the night.

“Please.”

The sounds he makes, rare to hear at such a perfect aching pitch, the words that fill his shaking sighs, it's music to Will, something to be cherished and adored and remembered, memorized.

"So polite," Will praises him again, voice inflected with a long groan as he buries himself entirely in one smooth rocking motion. The movement presses Hannibal's breath from him, lips parting soundless, and Will watches in delight as his throat works on a hard swallow, before he groans in kind.

Deep and slow, just as Hannibal asked, a rhythm meant to fill him and leave him feeling full for days after, every time he moves or seats himself, to think of this, of him, of them both joined in such a simple pleasure that to them, after everything, means so much it defies description.

"For me?" asks Will, as his palm curls up over the head of Hannibal's cock, squeezing, thumb stroking across the soft skin, past it to the slick slit beneath. He presses his nose against Hannibal's temple, kisses his cheek rather than his lips to hear his sounds. "Do it for me," he begs again, as his hips maintain their ceaseless rhythm.

“Yes.” Hannibal’s eyes are closed, mouth open on constant low sounds of need as he pushes down against Will, turns his head to feel them nuzzle together, close, gentle, as he feels the heat in his belly coil, twist, as Will’s hand does against his cock, and he allows himself release with a sigh. 

Hannibal blinks his eyes open quickly, fluttering eyelids and flushed cheeks, body tense with pleasure as he takes in the sight of Will above him, poised and wide-eyed, watching him as though Hannibal is the most beautiful and rare thing in the world.

“My Will.” Hannibal cups a hand against Will’s face, up into his hair, brings him close to nuzzle their noses together as he feels Will tremble, whimper softly, his body shuddering and going entirely still as he follows Hannibal over, contented, laughing with relief and pleasure.

“You are beautiful,” Hannibal tells him, turning his lips to kiss against Will’s.

Heart still thrumming fast against the cage of his ribs, breath quick but slowing from his lips, Will’s grin appears again, fleeting, hidden against Hannibal’s neck where he buries his face. Pulling free from him with a little sound, sliding from between Hannibal’s legs, Will settles heavy beside him, still half on top, and lets his eyes close.

“If you say that enough, I might start to believe you,” he warns, but the smile doesn’t entirely fade as he says it. An easy adjustment of limbs, legs wrapped together, enough space only to let air move between them and cool the sweat on their skin, as Hannibal turns towards Will and traces a hand through his hair.

They're quiet, the house warm with the door shut to the garden, with dinner simmering inside, and after a while Hannibal kisses Will and moves to stand, a languid and slow trek to the bathroom to wipe down with a cool cloth that he rinses and brings back for Will as well.

"I believe it every day," he tells him, quiet, smiling. "I will be sure to say it often."

Then he goes to allow their furry bundle back into the house to tear through it and find something new or amiss, to pounce on Will and lick his face until he laughs, murmurs sweet words in French until the puppy settles, as Hannibal ladles out the stew and sets it to the table.

It is a relief, when the puppy nudges Will’s cheek with abandon, sweet and carefree, with no awareness of the scars now revealed, the beard gone, but merely a desire for Will. Moreso a burden lifted when Hannibal kisses him on the cheek, as he always does, when Will comes to join him in the kitchen. Chiot sits in Will’s lap, chasing spoonfuls of stew and clucked at softly by Hannibal, before she moves to him instead, and Will pretends not to notice as he palms her a piece of fish beneath the table. Hannibal returns the favor by merely humming when Will presses his bare feet beneath Hannibal’s thigh, and he shifts to accommodate them.

Though the movements are halting at times, sometimes even backwards, the steps they take more often than not are are undeniably _forward_. To learn each other again, to settle and release, a reclamation of times shared on quiet snowy mornings, made theirs again in a home by the sea.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where will you take me?” Hannibal asks, hand up to toy with the wet curls and push them behind Will’s ear.
> 
> “I will follow you to the ends of the earth.”

It’s only when he finally attempts to do so, that Will discovers that perhaps he no longer enjoys being the bearer of surprises.

Hannibal is entirely unassuming on the beach as Will approaches him from the water. Spread across an overly large towel, sun-baked but for the shadow cast by the book he holds aloft, he glances beneath his sunglasses towards Will as Will looms over him, dripping ocean on his legs.

“I was thinking,” Will declares, snaring up his towel and jostling the sand from it. He rubs it into his hair, across the scruff grown back across his chin and cheeks, down over his chest.

“You often are.”

“Always,” Will corrects him. “I always am.”

He drops beside him onto the towel, ignoring the faintly disapproving look Hannibal gives his shorts as they soak through into it.

“And what makes this occasion special?” Hannibal reaches for his bookmark and slides it carefully into the text, letting it rest on his chest.

“I was thinking about you.”

“Rare enough to note,” responds Hannibal, and Will snorts.

“About us.”

Hannibal hums, eyes closed against the sun now that the shadow of his book no longer blocks it out, lips tilting just enough to show a smile, though he pretends to hide it, pretends not to be amused.

“About us,” he coaxes, waits, tilts his head and opens one eye to regard Will from beneath his sunglasses, where he sits, knees drawn up and arms looped around them, drops of water still clinging to the skin where he hasn’t bothered to wipe it away. He will taste of salt when Hannibal kisses his shoulder later, when he nuzzles into his hair and smiles when Will chides him about distracting him when he should be working on an engine.

Will presses his lips together and swallows before turning to look at Hannibal properly, squinting against the sun, hair wild and curled, drying quickly in the sun.

“We deserve something good,” he says carefully, and Hannibal arches an eyebrow, lips unable to not tilt now, smiling at Will.

“Something better than the insatiable creature currently locked in the garden?” he asks, feigning shock.

Will glances back over his shoulder towards the fenced-in space, overpouring its borders with trees and vines heavy with fruit. He smiles a little, brows drawing in, and turns to lay down beside Hannibal, head against his shoulder.

“Something a bit less slobbery, maybe.”

He turns his head against Hannibal’s chest, to breathe in the smell of sunscreen and sweat, and lifts a hand to splay and curl in the greying hairs there. The pleasures of a secluded home on a stretch of beach that may as well be private.

“Are you doing anything tonight?”

It’s almost a silly question when they so rarely share evenings apart, and usually then only by necessity - caught on the other side of the island in a bad storm, a worthwhile job that calls Will away to one of the countless little islands around them.

Will considers that once, he would have dragged this on for days, being conspicuously furtive, obviously sly, asking just enough questions - real and misleading - to work Hannibal into a narrow-eyed suspicion. It simply doesn’t seem very funny anymore to do it, when Hannibal watches him contentedly, fond crinkles in the corners of his eyes.

“I thought,” Will fills in the space between them. “Well, I mean - I made plans. Maybe. For us.”

Hannibal’s hand comes up lazily to curl over Will where he rests against him, toying with the scar on his shoulder gently, circling it until the skin grows sensitive, goosebumps around the mark. He says nothing for a moment, before ducking his head to press his nose gently against Will’s damp hair to breathe him in.

“You catch me entirely unprepared,” Hannibal muses, smiling. “I am without a suit for the occasion.”

In truth, he has kept suits, something that has amused Will to no end on an island like this, where dust and dirt and unholy hot summers keep them contented and comfortable. He has three, all impeccable, all tailored. He has never thought he would need them here but there was always something, lingering, perhaps one part of himself he truly never wanted to give up.

“And you most certainly.”

He kisses Will and tilts his head when Will turns to him to rest his chin against his chest.

“Where will you take me?” Hannibal asks, hand up to toy with the wet curls, now, pushing them behind Will’s ear.

“I will follow you to the ends of the earth.”

Will’s laugh is soft, little more than a huff of air against Hannibal’s chest, fingers skimming up his throat, his chin, to trace the long, straight line of his nose. “Fairly sure we’ve done that already,” he grins, and shakes his head a little. The newly tucked curls fall loose again, stiffened by ocean salt against Hannibal’s cheek as Will leans in to kiss him.

“Anyway,” he teases. “You mean that I’ve only caught you with several suits to choose from, and not an entire closet of them. I’m not sure you necessarily need one for this, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be out of line.”

Drawing his lower lip into his mouth, Will tastes the salt on it and then suggests, uncertainty in his eyes, “I looked for an opera. There isn’t one, but - there’s a restaurant. They have a band that plays there. They do jazz on the weekend.” He turns his eyes towards the fence again, hesitant to meet Hannibal’s curious gaze, and glad that the sun has warmed his cheeks enough to hide the blush he can feel prickling across his skin. “There’s even a distillery nearby, they do tastings. I mean, it’s rum, not wine. I could go and,” he hesitates, sighs. “I would go with you, to that. Sit with you. Then dinner, I thought.”

He brings his head down against Hannibal’s chest again, tucked beneath his chin. “You do a lot for me,” he murmurs. “After - everything. All the time. Chiot and all of this and - well, putting up with me, generally, really. I thought it might be nice to go out and do something like we used to. It’s not opera, but -”

Both hands over Will’s back now, rubbing the water into them until it evaporates and it’s soft fingers over warm flesh, and Hannibal wraps his arms around him tighter, ducking his head to hold Will close that way too.

The thought is extraordinarily touching. Hannibal has so long not considered the extravagance of his old life, he hasn’t needed to. Despite the simplicity of life here, he has all he needs for it. His kitchen is large, stocked and spacious, ingredients always fresh, someone always to cook for. He has Will. He has Will smiling.

But something about the thought of going out, together, having Will on his arm as he had been so many nights in Baltimore… something tugs. Something pulls at him, coils and pleads to accept, just once.

Because Will wants him to, because Will _remembered_.

“Opera is not for the summer,” he comments softly, entirely pleased, warmed by the thought, “and jazz is perfect for late summer evenings.”

He waits, a beat, two, before adding casually, “And perhaps a walk, instead, to clear our heads before dinner. The distillery will always be there, it will forgive us.”

Will knows his gratitude - his relief, really - shows in the soft sigh that escapes him, before it’s caught beneath a kiss pressed to Hannibal’s cheek.

“It would be my pleasure, doctor,” he murmurs, fingers skimming down the other side of his cheek, heads touched together. A kiss is shared, lingering long between them, until finally Will pushes to sit up. But before Hannibal can join him, he slides a leg across his stomach and sits heavy on him, perched as though he were a particularly pleased cat.

“They serve French, classic, apparently, the menu said, and it didn’t show the prices so I know it’s your kind of place,” he muses, eyes alight already with the idea of seeing Hannibal out again, every stitch and seam in place, an array of bewildering silverware at his disposal, that secret smile that appears just beneath his eyes, shared with Will across a linen-covered table. A facet of Hannibal - his Hannibal - that he hasn’t seen in years, truly, too many for him and certainly too many for the man himself, who watches pleased as Will trails his fingers down his nose again, to catch against his lips and press against them with gentle fingertips.

“You might have to help me find something to wear. I’ve caught myself even more unprepared than you, and I can’t imagine they’ll be happy letting me in like this.”

"I'm unsure how much proper restraint I could show if they did," Hannibal admits, amused. He kisses soft against the fingers at his lips, draws them gently into his mouth and sucks, just enough for Will to bite his lip, reluctantly draw them away.

It is late afternoon, now, the best time to enjoy the sun as it's passed it's hottest apex of the day. The tide will be out later in the evening, prompting Will a decent jog to the water in the morning, Chiot streaking behind him and delighting in the surf.

For now, though, they have the evening ahead.

To plan, to enjoy.

Together.

"I will find you something worthy," Hannibal tells him, tilting his head as Will cups his cheek and strokes him gently. "Make an honest gentleman out of you."

“Little late for that,” laughs Will, sliding his leg free again and slipping off of him against the towel, into the sand where he pushes up to his feet. He offers down a hand, tugging Hannibal to his feet when he takes it, and he brings his arms up around his neck to lean against him, sand still clinging to his skin. They kiss long in the sun, a sound escaping Will’s lips between them, before he reluctantly slides free to gather the towels.

“None of that,” Will chides Hannibal, who looks on in amusement before his book is tossed to him to catch. “I made a reservation and they’ll give up our table if we’re late.”

He doesn’t need to look to know that Hannibal is struck with no small amount of surprise at this, and grins to himself as he pads back through the sand towards the house.

“Two weeks ago,” he calls over his shoulder, before taking off at a sand-sluggish run towards the fence where Chiot barks expectantly.

They shower - separately, at Will’s quick dodges and laughing insistence that there isn’t time for anything but showering, and that it will be much more rewarding once they’ve had the night to think about it. It’s a tease, certainly, considering he’s already half-hard as he says it, but neither bring this to attention in favor of letting the game play out between them.

Hannibal finds that the darker suit jacket would fit Will best, of all the three, and presents it to him with a bow to the other's bright laugh and rolling eyes.

They dress. Hannibal in a lighter suit with a patterned tie, silk heavy against his throat and familiar, Will in a comfortable shirt, the jacket on top, his dark jeans beneath.

It is still fairly light out, considering the summer, and Will takes the wriggling puppy outside before they leave, standing as Hannibal does every morning, regarding the sky, their fruit trees and grapes. It's so quiet here, a gentle slow lifestyle that they are both settling into with audible sighs of relief.

This is home.

Hannibal holds the door for Will when he finally leaves the house, displeased whining following him when Chiot finds she cannot follow, and holds his hand for Will to take as he gets into the car.

"You will need to direct me."

Will’s fingers lace through Hannibal’s as he settles into the passenger side, glancing back towards the house and parting his lips with his tongue. “She’s going to miss us,” he sighs, but it’s a surprisingly welcome thought, all things considered. Someplace, someone to return to at the end of the night, beyond the constant of the other that now sits holding holds in the car.

He rolls the window down to let the night air in, eyes closed against it as Hannibal pulls out of the long driveway.

“It’s the same road, but go right instead of left - towards Grand-Case rather than Anse Marcel,” he murmurs. His hair ruffles in the wind, a content, faint smile across his lips. “The perks of living on an island with very few roads, and having a job that takes me around most of them.”

The road spreads black before them, and Will finally opens his eyes to watch the ocean out his window. It would match the sky were it not betrayed by the reflection of the moon shimmering across its steady waves, and he feels his heart - his entire chest - swell at the sight of it.

At feeling Hannibal’s fingers close a little tighter around his own.

He doesn’t bother with the radio as he normally might, the sound of the expensive car and the waves rushing against the shore beneath them more than enough. Hannibal’s car hums - purrs, almost - rather than clatters like Will’s truck, and he turns finally to watch Hannibal with one hand braced across the wheel. The suit fits him beautifully and Will knows it must have been an acquisition after prison, to fit his leaner, sleeker body so well where the others would have been too large.

Will isn’t sure what happened to the others, really - the suits from Baltimore.

He doesn’t linger on it.

“You look great,” Will tells him gently, bringing Hannibal’s hand to his lips.

A soft smile, the corners of Hannibal’s eyes wrinkling in pleasure, before he turns to glance briefly at Will. His fingers set light on the wheel before he slides it against his palm, takes the turn with little effort.

"And you are entirely distracting," he murmurs in return, smile more evident, now, almost mischievous and Will finds his heart beating faster at the sight.

"Do you remember," Hannibal asks, tone casual, head tilting to regard the left side mirror before returning to the windscreen, "when I had that suit tailored for you? When I took you to Cirque du Soleil to spare you the initial terror of the opera?"

The words are so calm, tone entirely neutral, yet Will’s cheeks flush bright, fingers squeeze gentle with Hannibal's.

He remembers.

The show, the teasing, the way the door had felt against his back as Hannibal had held him against it, rutting together and sharing hot breaths and delicious words.

"Vaguely," he teases, and Hannibal smiles wide enough to show his teeth, delighted by the game, relaxed and happy to be out with Will once more, together, enjoying their home island now as they had previously been contented not to.

"I do hope my patience remembers its once impenetrable ancestor," Hannibal responds. "I worry we may not make it long through dinner, with you dressed as you are."

Another brief glance, eyes narrowed in a smile.

"You look exquisite," Hannibal finally responds, bringing up Will’s hand to kiss his palm in turn.

Will follows Hannibal's fingers with his lips as they stretch and spread between his own, and laughs against them. "Can't have perfect taste in all things, I guess."

They drive until - like a fire's distant glow - lights come into view down the winding road. A small town, as they all are here, with boats bobbing in great numbers in the bay just beyond. Their lights and those of the town sparkle bright off black sea that Will knows to be perfectly clear, no matter how impenetrable it seems in the moment.

Will directs him, though there are few enough streets to get lost along. "There," he points, "if you turn there's a little place for parking, near the boats. It's just a short walk back towards the square. French chef - classically trained - retired here apparently. I found it dropping off an onboard. I had to promise them I wasn’t going to stay when I went in to look. Covered in oil."

Houses rise high and straight against the mountains that surround the inlet, a square of shops and stores at its center, replete with a fountain dating back to the French arrival. It's the sort of anachronism that Will has become used to here - elements of Western Europe, more at home in Paris or Amsterdam, amongst the emergent culture, native and new, intertwined.

"No wonder we get on so well here," Will observes, and without being privy to the rest of his thoughts, Hannibal regards him with a quiet pleasure as they exit the car.

The evening is cooler but not enough to warrant more than what they're wearing, and quiet. The sounds of boats gently bumping large old tires tied to the dock, the water itself, the wind coming off the cliff in a gentle whistle. It is beautiful here, and without a word, Hannibal holds out his arm for Will to take, in jest or seriousness it is hard to say, but he smiles wide when Will does.

They start to walk, Hannibal guiding them in a gentle meandering pace towards the fountain, relishing this gem of civilization on an island so quiet and tucked away. It makes the restaurant all the more delightful, like a pearl found by accident in the sand.

The water here is clear, no marks of disrespect with rubbish at the bottom of the fountain, all the dark streaks over the marble naturally formed algae living in the fast-running water. Hannibal turns his head to nuzzle softly into Will's hair and smiles.

"I'm quite looking forward to the reveal," he admits, amused, warmed and quieted by the atmosphere outside. "From oil and rags to riches."

"I only had the one rag," Will points out, but he’s grinning.

"And you are wearing only one bespoke item," Hannibal reminds him, kissing the warm curls and squeezing his hand gently. "A pleasantly equivalent exchange."

The kiss draws a flood of color to Will’s cheeks, a glance around them to see if anyone is looking, if anyone has seen. It’s a concern, still, for Will - aware of how others may regard them, being so near each other as that, wary always of drawing too much attention to themselves.

To Hannibal, in particular.

But the cafes and restaurants that spill out onto the sidewalk, small tables and big groups, are noisy, boisterous, and no one seems to pay them much mind. Will hums, thoughtful, to himself and leans up to share a longer kiss, smile curving into it before it finally breaks into a grin and he tugs himself away, hand sliding to squeeze Hannibal’s softly before releasing.

The restaurant is smaller than those around it, and far quieter for that. Music - piano and bass, a muted sax - draws them inward, and Will speaks in French to the host as they arrive. He’s quickly picked up the island patois, so similar to the bastard Creole he knew already, and they share a laugh, briefly, Will’s cheeks reddening a little as he admits that yes, he was the mechanic that came in during lunch.

They are seated without further question, a little table close enough to hear the music but not so close it would overpower conversation, menus for wine and food brought for them both.

“Will you order for me?” Will asks, without regarding the menus - without regarding anything beyond Hannibal, really, and the way the collar of his shirt sits perfectly against his neck, silk against his throat, a fascination with watching him settle into an environment so much like the ones he once frequented. He wonders, briefly, if it’s strange for him, after so long away from anything like this.

He doesn’t ask.

Hannibal smiles, eyes lingering on Will before he opens the menu to consider.

He himself has not been able to fully let go of his proper French, still lilting on words here that are harsher, tonally adjusting others that seem hollow. It has brought people endless - non-malicious - amusement when they speak to him regarding his wine, when he visits other islands for work or goes to the market.

For him, it’s a comfort, familiarity, a language he can understand here without having yet fully assimilated.

He adores, however, that Will has.

“I can choose but you will have to ask,” he responds with a smirk, eyes skimming and quickly choosing their meal for the evening, turning to the wine list to match to that as well. Something light, he thinks, enough to be comfortable, enough to fill but not enough to weigh down. His body hums with the knowledge of Will’s proximity, so long since they have been in public this way and unable to touch as casually as they do at home.

It’s exhilarating, exciting, and Hannibal tilts his head to regard Will across the table.

Will orders, capably. He ensures that the beef - a luxury so far from the mainland - will be cooked rare, as Hannibal prefers it, that they will consider the dessert menu after main course, that only one glass is necessary for the wine. He has to drive, he explains, unnecessarily perhaps, but it helps to ease the tension that roils and snaps tight in him, to assure that there is no temptation to merely have a glass, just one, just one with each dish, just enough to finish the bottle, several bottles, more.

A sigh, soft, is released towards his lap as the waiter departs with their order, and Will offers a faint smile across the table to Hannibal.

There’s something familiar in the slump he catches himself settling into, observing Hannibal this way, and he allows himself to hold it a moment longer until he remembers once sitting across from him at a table roughly the same size, in a dingy motel room, the first time he heard himself referred to as a teacup, and not the last.

Lip caught between his teeth, he sits up a little, aware that this is not the kind of place that would look favorably on slouching as he is, and Will takes the opportunity of adjustment to extend a leg out a little further, and press his foot against Hannibal’s own.

“We’ll have to find you a tailor if we do this more often,” he finally muses. “It wouldn’t do to show up in the same suits, I imagine.”

Hannibal hums, adjust just enough to settle his foot against Will’s and not move it again, the contact welcome and comfortable.

“And it would not do to cobble together suits for you,” he adds, amused. “As well as you happen to wear this particular contraption, I would enjoy seeing you in something designed for the purpose of being worn together.”

He barely glances up when the wine is brought, a little poured into the glass for him to taste. He accepts it, thanks the waiter once he leaves, doesn’t touch the wine when he turns away from Will to the small band playing by the large windows that usually overlook the fountain and the ocean beyond.

It is a familiar tune, soft and easy, and he can feel himself settle, relax, allow the entire atmosphere of the night to seep through his suit, his skin, and warm him.

He thinks of winter mornings.

He thinks of the endless click of the needle when neither wanted to get up to change the record, Will curled half-asleep with his legs tangled in the sheets and Hannibal’s own, Hannibal reading from his tablet, Maggie inevitably with her head against his stomach though he will ardently deny having let her crawl so far up.

He blinks, and it’s summer again, and when he turns to Will he smiles.

“This is a very welcome surprise,” he tells him.

Will’s blush darkens and he ducks his head, a shy smile nearly hidden as he does, eyes turning towards the band. “All of it, really,” he agrees, musing distant-eyed from beneath the wild hair that finds its way in front of them, no matter how much he brushed and fought with it before they left. “I wonder if one day we’ll wake up without noticing it. Scoop Chiot out of the sheets. Make coffee. Start the laundry and gripe at each other about the right settings for it, whether the darks need to be separated from the lights, really. Write out the grocery list.”

He turns his slight smile back down to his lap, brow furrowed. “I wonder if we’ll wake up one day and it won’t all feel like a pleasant surprise.”

The first course arrives, fragrant and beautifully plated, but Will has as little regard for it as he ever does, and much more for the man across from him whose eyes dance across the expensive plates and small, perfect portions.

Hannibal has cared for him, Will is convinced, far more than the other way around. From the moment he arrived in Marathon, Will has wondered if perhaps he was a burden that was only questionably worth undertaking. But Hannibal - his - has almost never faltered, never let his temper or his tone rise, more patience and grace than Will could ever imagine having in his entire collected life. Gentle hands to direct Will not into some new form - into something he hasn’t yet been or once was - but into what he is, now, with warm reminders of the parts of his life worth remembering. The dogs and the lazy mornings, the music and the dry humor, with all the skill of a composer - for he is that - Hannibal has guided him, supported him.

_Anything. Always._

And asked so little in return, despite the suffering that he underwent and Will can only imagine.

“I’ve missed you like this,” Will admits softly, as though wary that speaking too loudly would disrupt the moment. “Seeing you in this way.”

Hannibal looks at him, cutlery yet untouched, food beautifully presented between them, but it doesn’t matter.

“I will admit,” he murmurs, leaning a little closer, as though to keep something a secret despite no interruptions where they sit, “That I no longer feel quite as at ease in a suit as I once did. You have corrupted me with cotton.”

He relishes the laugh, the way Will ducks his head again, the soft sound that he makes before he sits up again and takes up his knife and fork for dinner. He is beautiful, nervous but not tense, tired perhaps, nostalgic, and Hannibal can’t blame him. It is a sweet nostalgia, a welcome one. He takes up his own cutlery.

They eat quietly, allowing the jazz to wash over them as they share the space and glances between them. And more and more they linger. Over Will’s shoulders, stronger now though still slim, beneath the jacket that fits him well but not perfectly, over his face, dark with a soft shadow of stubble he keeps neatly trimmed, the scars beneath.

Subtly, Hannibal shifts his leg, crosses it over the other, presses the tip of his shoe against Will’s knee and down to his calf, once.

A shiver, beneath his jacket, as Will’s eyes lift to meet Hannibal’s for an instant before darting away again. He suppresses a grin into a small smile instead, eyes narrowing a little, as one course is finished and the next arrives.

“It’s not as good as yours,” Will murmurs to him, when they are safely out of earshot of the waiter. Now Hannibal’s eyes light a little, and Will can’t resist a crooked grin. “I’m very lucky to be so spoiled by you.”

Will reaches to pour for Hannibal, little regard for how peculiar it may look to others there - how peculiar they must look already - to encourage him not to waste wine. To show that he’s okay. He is.

More than.

“And I’m nothing compared to Chiot,” he adds with a dire tone, and a soft sigh, amused. “You never feed me with your fingers.”

“Shall I start?” Hannibal responds without hesitation, eyes bright with amusement as he takes up the glass and takes a small sip of wine, paying it little mind, unlike he once did, when he would take his time to take in the nose of it, feel every part of it against his palette. Right now it doesn’t matter.

And Will is right that it is not as good as their own.

“Perhaps with dessert.” he adds, tilting his foot again to caress Will under the table as he takes up his fork. “That is certainly something she doesn’t get.”

“You make her gourmet dinner.”

“As you once did for your pack,” Hannibal responds with a smile, pausing to enjoy a mouthful of dinner before licking his lips and regarding Will with a tilt of his head. “Though I suppose you never smoked the fish at home.”

“Fish, yes.” Will counters, amused, “Salmon that sells at $50 a pound, no.”

Hannibal’s eyes wrinkle in pleasure and he is the one to duck his head this time.

Sliding forward a little in his seat, Will leans his leg back against Hannibal's foot. He holds it there, a steady pressure - touch, finally, desperately desired after even such a short time apart across the table from each other.

"I swear this wasn't my motivation for setting this up," Will begins, fork held still against his plate, "but do you think -"

He hesitates, blushing beneath the persistent, curious gaze of the man across from him, and lifting his napkin to his lips as though to further shield himself from the pursuant look laid across him.

"Do you think she might like a friend?"

Hannibal laughs, a low, soft sound of genuine delight, and regards Will across from him.

“Do not tell me that the last surprise for the evening is picking up a sibling for the spoilt little creature at home?”

Will laughs too, presses a hand to his eyes and lets his mouth widen on a grin, shakes his head. 

He is so beautiful this way, free and happy, letting himself laugh, letting himself relax. Hannibal blinks and waits, smiles, caresses Will’s leg with his own again as the jazz around them curls and lingers like aromatic smoke.

“No,” Will says finally, licking his lip into his mouth and biting it gently before taking up his fork again. “Not for this evening.”

Hannibal cannot help it, too close, too warm. His Will, his beautiful, strong, entrancing Will who he loves beyond words. He reaches with his free hand to settle on Will’s wrist, brushing the pulse there, pressing fingers just under the hem of the jacket sleeve, before removing his fingers to take up the glass of wine again.

“Chiot could use a friend,” he agrees, bringing his hand to his lips next, tapping against them slowly to match the rhythm playing around them. “But I had other plans for this evening.”

Will’s brows lift beneath his hair, smile pressed across his lips as he glances towards the rest of the restaurant from beneath his hair. He slinks a hand across the table, to gather Hannibal’s fingers in his own, to hold them there hidden in the shadows of their table, but thrilled by the bright illumination of their touch.

It’s hard to imagine the man behind a wall of steel and bullet-proof glass, harder still to imagine that once Will had reconciled himself to the fact that they would never touch again. All the more reason to not let go now, to share this hidden affection as a singer takes the stage, her voice a rough bossa nova purr, and all eyes turn to her.

“And what did you have planned tonight, doctor?” Will conspires with him, leaning a little nearer across the table. “Beyond dessert.”

Hannibal turns their hands so he can stroke his thumb against Will’s knuckles, taking up his fork in his right hand so he can continue the semblance of a normal, calm dinner out together. The food is good, rich and worth its money, surely, but it doesn’t taste the same as when Will surprises Hannibal with dinner at home.

He casts his eyes over the others in the restaurant, allows them to linger on the singer, slight with dark skin and dark hair, a beautiful woman. Then he turns his eyes to Will and holds them there.

“Records,” he tells him softly. “Coffee. A wriggling creature seeking attention even in her sleep. Though, the latter perhaps… after the records and coffee.”

It is a thrill difficult to put into words to watch Hannibal’s attention shift - from food, to music, to Will again - and to see his senses stir, so much sharper than Will could even imagine experiencing. An awareness of the notes between notes, the history and influences behind them, on their plates and on the small stage across from them.

Between them, just as much.

“Doctor Lecter,” Will whispers, amused, “you’re trying to seduce me.”

He finishes his plate, enough, never the whole thing, and slips his free hand back through his hair to clear it from his eyes. He could spend a lifetime in this moment - in so many like it - and commits it to memory with a soft smile. “We’re hopeless, aren’t we?”

Hannibal’s assent comes in the form of a pleased hum against his glass, and Will sighs, eyes rolling skyward in teasing consideration.

“I do find _that_ interesting,” he allows, and parts his lips with his tongue, eyes narrowed in pleasure. “But only if you’ll let me peel that suit off of you, stitch by stitch.”

A blink, languid to anyone merely looking their way, but Will can see how dark Hannibal’s eyes have become, how his motions have shifted from relaxed to considering, like a cat seeing an opportunity to lunge, taking its time to plan.

“Perhaps.” He nods, setting his cutlery on the plate in such a way as to suggest a meal well enjoyed. “But it would be so unspeakably rude to cut short an evening so long in the planning. We will stay for dessert.”

The smile increases by a degree, deepens the lines at the corners of his eyes, tilts his lips, when Will looks almost put out by the idea of lingering longer.

But of course, had he expected anything different?

“Dessert, then,” he agrees, letting go of Hannibal’s hand as the waiter comes to clear their table, and Will asks after a dessert menu for them to share.

The choices sound exquisite, and both know the portions will be tiny no matter what they select. Will chooses an orange mousse, dark chocolate curled on top with thick cream and zest, Hannibal strays towards a bitter choice, darkest chocolate and chilli pepper, thick enough to consume with a spoon, though called hot chocolate regardless.

The singer on stage bows as she finishes a song, and they both turn to clap, appreciative, comfortable, before Hannibal slides his legs up between Will’s gently shifting them to spread until Will sits straighter, obeys with a flush as he settles his eyes on Hannibal. The other promptly and casually crosses his own legs, leans back in his chair with a smile.

Will remains tall in his chair, shoulders back and legs slightly spread. A playful, private sort of show is made of the speed at which he eats his mousse, spoon turning slow to draw it against his tongue, a trace left across his lips as he pulls it slowly away. Cheeks bright even without the benefit of wine, his tongue catches the streak of cream, before he sucks his lower lip into his mouth to ensure he’s gotten it all.

His eyes never leave Hannibal’s, and the smoldering look it earns him forces a stoppage in play, interrupted by a snort and a smirk, gaze finally darting away towards the singer as she drifts to a lower register, her voice as rich as the desserts themselves.

“Do you want to try it?” offers Will, mildly enough.

Hannibal smiles, frees his own spoon to take a small portion of Will's dessert. Much as he would like to lean forward, have the man feed him then chase the sweetness with a kiss, they cannot do it here.

He takes his time, delighting in the fact that Will had thought to feed him just as he had decided they could not, and hums pleasure at the taste. Milder than his own, smooth and fresh with citrus.

"It suits you," he says at length, leaning back to gesture with his spoon, catching his toe gently under Will’s knee to force him to settle on his toes as well, still slightly spread, a delicious tease he cannot see anywhere but in the blush Will offers.

"The suit hybrid," he clarifies, smiling wider, before turning his elaborate serving mug for Will to spoon himself some of Hannibal’s dessert in exchange.

Peering into the cup, Will glances from it to Hannibal, and back again. “Not exactly Swiss Miss instant, is it?”

He dips his spoon in and savors it, brows lifting curiously at the flavor, almost savory between the darkness of the chocolate and the rising heat of the chilis. “An innuendo in a mug,” Will decides, and the movement of Hannibal’s toes against the underside of his knee cut short a sigh that Will only just holds back from becoming a gasp.

They indulge, in their desserts and in comfortable quiet, in the presence of the other and the bittersweet strains of music that surround them. More moments like this, as time passes so wonderfully slow here, where they find themselves with little to say and even less necessity to say anything at all. There are no cases to discuss here, no bodies or patients that would take their attention away from the languid life they’ve earned. Long looks form eloquent substitutions for any words that would clutter the space between them, lingering touches when those looks are too distant still.

It is enough to know the other is there and theirs.

The teasing, however, the joy of seeing the other made desirous - already desired - doesn’t slow, and before long, Will can hardly stand to sit so straight and tall, toes pressed into the floor and Hannibal’s foot propped against his leg to ensure they both stay spread, just wide enough to distract Will from losing awareness of the position.

His expression grows increasingly rueful, eyes narrowed in playful dismay, until finally the band takes a break, and their check is brought to them and paid.

The hours have drawn on without notice, without care, and stars curl across the sky in countless number. Will nearly slips from the curb as he looks towards it, caught by Hannibal’s quick hand on his arm, and he grins, suddenly, glancing toward him.

“I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before,” Will observes, turning in a slow circle and marking the sky with his hand. “We’re far enough south - it makes sense. The stars are - the constellations, I mean. They’re different. Not completely, still the same hemisphere, but,” he pauses, and blinks at Hannibal, a sudden awareness that he must look half-mad to anyone else on the street. “Just off, a little.”

Hannibal kisses him, just one step to get them closer together before one hand finds its way into Will’s curls and the other rests against his arm still where he had caught him.

It’s slow and deep, eyes closed and breathing slowed, and Hannibal can feel his heart beating quick against his ears, against Will as the other sighs soft and goes entirely pliant against him, one hand up to rest against his tie, the other turned to hold his wrist where Hannibal grips him.

When they break it’s hard to say, minutes, hours, it doesn’t matter. Hannibal sets his palm against Will’s cheek, his forehead to his, and smiles.

“Do you know them?” he asks softly, French low and gentle between them.

Will turns his eyes skyward again, before closing them with a slight smile, a gentle nuzzle against the side of Hannibal’s nose. “I used to. Out in the woods, walking at night,” he responds. “I haven’t had much cause to look. Not for a long time.”

Another kiss, Will’s grip tightening around Hannibal’s tie even as the meeting of their lips is but a gentle press.

“I’ll have to relearn them,” Will laughs softly. “We can learn the stars together.”

He lets his fingers slip from the silk and snare Hannibal’s hand in his own instead, another little smile as he turns, towards the car, towards home.

Will drives, and doesn’t let his hand leave Hannibal’s for the entire ride.

They hear the puppy before they see her, frantic whining and scrabbling against the door that hits a pitch enough to know that she is overjoyed, not upset or frightened, and it is the most wonderful feeling, knowing that something so small, so powerless in its own way, is so happy that they both are home.

Neither lift her, just watch as she bounds around them, back half pulled by her tail so she looks like a strange wiggling creature. Bouncing up with her paws to one then the other, turning on the spot for scratches, rolling back for tummy rubs.

It’s Will, in the end, who breaks first and lifts her, turning her on her back to scratch her tummy and murmur sweet words against her warm puppy paws that press to his face.

Hannibal ushers them both to the house and closes the door, waits for Will to be done with his reunion, takes the little thing from him and scratches behind her ears before taking her to the back glass door and letting her free in the garden, closing the door with a deliberate quiet click, before straightening his shoulders with a hum and turning to regard Will over his shoulder as he slowly pulls his tie loose.

“Hannibal,” Will protests, eyes wide as he looks towards the door, puppy paws already placed expectantly against it. “We just got back. It’s been hours.”

“And so she should go out,” Hannibal agrees.

“But she mi-” Will’s words catch in his throat, brows lifting as Hannibal tugs the tie free with a decisive gesture, and in that singular movement - and the memory of being so gently and ruthlessly teased for so long - his argument is fairly forgotten.

He steps closer, an amble, really, taking his time in taking in Hannibal, dark-eyed and devastatingly handsome in his suit.

“You know,” Will smiles instead, following a lapel between his fingers, “you got used to the other dogs watching.”

A grin, sudden and bright.

An eyebrow rises and Hannibal settles the loose tie over Will’s neck to draw him closer, hands on either end and tugging to pull Will against him. He hums, blinks and leans in to kiss him again, chasing the tangy taste of orange from him, breathing in the warm smell of the man himself.

“You would corrupt her so young?” he murmurs, smiling, eyes hooded and fingers shifting to take more of the tie against them, folded between his knuckles and holding Will close. He doesn’t let Will answer, steps closer as he holds him in place and brings one leg up between Will’s own, enough to rub, to feel, before setting it firm to the ground, Will effectively straddling him standing. He smiles at the sound it draws.

“Shall I let her back in?”

Grasping Hannibal’s shoulders, Will’s fingers curl into the fabric and hold fast, lips parting as he swallows hard at the sensation. The prickle of heat across his cheeks is intense enough for him to duck his head, sighing laughter.

“N-No,” he grins. “No, maybe not yet. Hell, Hannibal.”

He leans up suddenly to kiss him, tugging his lapels with both hands as he rides forward, chest to chest, hips nearly meeting hips as Will rocks down against the firm leg between his own. Hurried fingers do not linger to savor the sensation of a slow undressing, but rather twist down each button, rapid and clumsy, until he can shove his jacket back off his shoulders, clinging to them with a gasp between their lips.

“Coffee,” he echoes. “Records.”

The taste of wine and chocolate between them, decadent and lovely, as Will’s tongue parts Hannibal’s lips in seeking more - more of the sweetness, more of Hannibal - and his hands run through his hair to feel the straight, soft strands spread beneath his fingers.

Hannibal groans, smiling, taking the kisses Will gives him, arching up to feel him rock against his leg harder. It’s so intoxicating, more than any wine, more than any whiskey. Just Will.

“You’re on coffee,” he breathes, pressing a kiss to Will’s cheek, down to his jaw, biting lightly there. “I will set the record.”

Words good in themselves but the actions harder to fulfill, harder to stick to the calm plan of before, the calm tease, when Will presses so hot against him Hannibal feels on fire from it. He gasps, licks his lip and snares Will closer, bending him to bite against his throat gently.

“You have just given me the most spectacular evening,” he murmurs. “A splendid meal and perfect company. Good music.”

Another gentle rocking up against him to feel Will shiver.

“I suppose it would be only polite to ask your input on the manner in which the evening ends.”

Balanced on the balls of his feet, Will drags his hips forward again, eyes falling nearly closed at the fierce friction between them, a groan spilling past parted lips.

“Christ,” he sighs, supporting himself with his hands secure on Hannibal’s chest, shirt wrinkling in his grip. “You - record, I will - hell,” he swears, head bowed against Hannibal’s shoulder. “Floor?”

“Bed,” Hannibal returns, but no more can he drag himself away to this than he could to choose music for them. A whine snares behind Will’s teeth, pressed into his lip, turning his eyes upward through the drape of his hair.

“I want to feel your mouth against me,” insists Will in a whisper, lifting a hand to catch his fingers against Hannibal’s mouth, tugging down his lower lip, delving deeper past with another little sound of delight.

A bite, more savage than Hannibal anticipates, not to harm but certainly to snare, to have Will’s lips part in pleasure, his eyes widen.

"You will have it,” he murmurs, turning to kiss Will’s palm before shrugging his jacket off fully and taking a step forward enough to unsettle Will into backing up. The tie he keeps secure around him, enough of a balance to keep both of them comfortable, neither stumbling as they go, until Will’s knees hit the bed and Hannibal presses him to it, mindless of propriety or patience, teeth against his throat, hands up in Will’s hair.

"Do you have any idea what you do to me?" he asks, voice rough.

Will grins, eyes rolling towards the top of the bed as he unfurls his arms towards it, stretching one shoulder first, and then the other, until a harsher bite from Hannibal pulls his attention back. He pushes his fingers through the man’s hair and bows his head back further, neck bared for him, and eyes fluttering closed as he slides one leg up alongside Hannibal’s hip.

“Drive you halfway to madness?” Will offers, squirming when he is nipped again in response. “All the way, in some respects.”

He releases the ruffle of Hannibal’s hair, now spilling beautifully into his face, and slips them between their undulating bodies to start loosening the buttons on Hannibal’s shirt.

“Tell me,” Will laughs. “Tell me what I do to you.”

Hannibal hums a laugh against Will’s skin, arches to allow swift fingers to work his buttons free, mindless of how the suit will crumple, how it is already crumpled, between them.

“You make me ache,” he growls, parting his teeth to rest against Will’s throat, tongue hot against the sensitive skin between. "You make my bones burn with need for you.”

He frees one of his own hands to splay over Will’s sternum, pressing heat to his skin through the shirt there, feeling his pulse spike at the touch, pushing aside the jacket still clinging to his shoulders.

“You make me hungry,” he purrs, “for the way whimpers taste on your lips, the way vulgar words do when I touch you, when I hold you close enough to taste it on the air.”

Will curses, Hannibal kisses him deeply, eyes closed and lips tilted on a smile, arching his shoulders obediently when Will seeks to remove his shirt from him, pulling back with a breathless sound to watch Will through hooded eyes.

“You make me better," he tells him gently.

Will tilts their mouths together with a satisfied sound, leaning up onto his elbow to feel their skin slide together. A hand on Hannibal's cheek, Will blinks upward at him, the rhythm of his heart making his face ruddy.

"Then we share that in common, too," Will suggests, stroking his fingertips across Hannibal's mouth, his own falling open in sympathy as Hannibal's lips part. "Although I seem to remember you being terrible, rather than better. An awful tease. And not the swearing. You don't do that." He grins against Hannibal's lips. "Good thing we have so much time for me to work it out of you."

With a laugh, blushing fierce, Will pushes himself up across the bed. He wriggles out of his pants and kicks them from his feet as he goes, as if to fend off pursuit from the man slinking sleekly towards him like a great cat. Will's grin dims with a shiver as Hannibal kisses his belly and lets his teeth graze the soft skin there.

"You make me come alive," Will murmurs, eyes fluttering comfortably closed. "And, god - if I can spend every day watching how your mind works, how your body responds to it - nothing has ever fascinated me more."

A whimper, high and pleased, pulse spiking as Hannibal bites a little lower, and sucks a mark against the space beneath his belly button.

"I want to spend the rest of my life like this," Will sighs, stretching both hands above his head to grasp the headboard. The words linger like jazz, like smoke, chocolate and wine between them, savored.

Remembered.

Theirs.

"Now make me vulgar," Will grins suddenly, and his body curls on a laugh.

Hannibal smiles back, nipping Will once more before allowing him the space to wriggle free of his final items of clothing, helping push them to the floor with a quiet growl before curling his shoulders again.

Fingers skim Will’s thighs before spreading them, hitching his hips up until Will laughs breathlessly with anticipation, bites his lip and ducks his head to watch. His cock is already mostly hard, curved on his stomach and heavy red, and Hannibal leans close enough to breathe him in; the heady arousal, the heat, the softness of Will so pliant and spread beneath him, before he ignores his cock entirely and bends to press his lips to Will's hole instead.

No matter the years between them, this has never changed.

Not the way Will’s stomach tenses, tightens, as his thighs spread wider on a sigh. Not the way his toes curl in anticipation, his body vibrates with gentle tremors. Not the way this entirely undoes Will from his moorings, pulling curses and whimpers free with abandon.

So Hannibal takes his time.

A slow lick, from just beneath the hole to up behind Will’s balls, another, broader tongue and harder pressure, just to feel Will shiver.

It doesn’t take long for Will’s request to be satisfied. On the third languid lick, he presses his palm against his face and shudders a curse beneath it, a breathless _fuck_ before dropping his free hand to Hannibal’s hair to clutch, tugging gently.

He starts to settle his heels against Hannibal’s back, thighs closing tight around his face, but Hannibal presses a hand into the back of Will’s knee to force it back, higher, to spread him wider and leave him exposed and quivering.

“Please,” Will begs, swears and oaths words falling freely as rain. “Oh, god…”

A laugh trembles from his lips, to remember the first time Hannibal tried this on him. They were exhausted already, blood and sweat still damp on their skin, but they found a resurgence of strength enough to pin each other against the stairs, the floor, finally the bed. Will had held a hand back to stop Hannibal from doing just this, a new and alarming inclination that Will resisted but found himself held in place for despite his squirming.

He remembers pressing his face into the bedcover moments later and begging the man for more, as an entirely different sort of squirm overtook his hips.

Fingers fall loose from Hannibal’s hair to grasp his own length instead, and Will bites his lip, bent nearly in half from the position he’s in to watch Hannibal between his legs.

As then, Hannibal relishes Will entirely, his hitched breathing and shaking thighs, the way he tenses and trembles, and always pushes up for more, to have Hannibal see his desire for this, feel it.

He brings his hands down to gently spread Will with his thumbs, smiling at the helpless little noise that just that draws, before leaning in to press his tongue just past the tight ring of muscle.

He could do this for hours, ignoring the eventual pain in holding his jaw open so wide, just to feel Will writhe and twist and bend for him, willing to do everything, anything, for more of this.

It had amused him to no end how for a while, Will would subtly adjust his routine, do something extra in helping make dinner, in cleaning up, hoping for this as a reward. Hannibal sucks against the sensitive skin and decides that until Will is sobbing he will not grant him mercy tonight.

Will knows his pleas - _more, please, oh god, Hannibal, more_ \- fall on deaf ears when he hears, and feels, Hannibal hum against him, and when he does, lips wrapped against him, tongue pressed inside of him, it’s enough to send Will arching nearly onto his shoulders entirely, a sudden snap of pleasure that brings a rosy blush to his entire body.

He is careful in how he touches himself, the barest brushes of his fingers up along his cock, so stiff it nearly hurts, but even still he resists the urge to simply grab and go for it. He wants it to last as long as Hannibal does, though his stomach is already coiled into a fierce knot of delicious frustration, and his breath hitches short on every stroke of tongue, every open kiss that Hannibal presses against him.

“Hannibal,” Will whimpers, his voice cracking on the man’s name. “Please, Hannibal -”

For a moment, Hannibal stops the lazy, slow rhythm and pushes his tongue in harder, hums and moans against Will, catching him to hold him still as he squirms from this.

Then he pulls back, lips parted to pant cool air against the wet skin, to regard Will fully flushed and gasping for air. Eyes seek up the length of him, to where Will’s pulse hammers against the skin, where his lips lie parted and red.

He sits up enough to draw the tip of his tongue from the base of Will's cock to the dark head, pressing his lips in a gentle kiss against it.

He wants to turn Will onto his knees, spread him that way and continue the torment, but a deeper part wants this, to press against Will warm and trembling, now, touch him, coax him gently to spread more so he can push into him.

Hannibal kisses Will’s hip and smiles at him.

The respite is appreciated, breath rattling past parted lips made damp by the press of Will’s tongue against them, but he considers his options with a slight squint at the devious man - amusement in his eyes and across the curve of his lips.

Will carefully slips his leg over Hannibal’s head, and rolls onto his belly with a grin past his bitten lip, watching Hannibal dark-eyed over his shoulder. He splays a leg across the bed, thighs spread, and arches his hips upward.

“More,” insists Will. He turns his cheek against the soft sheets, a smile pursed across his lips until, embarrassed, he laughs a little and hides this too against the bed. “Please, more? God…”

Without even needing to be touched now, he squirms, eager, fingers finding his cock again to tug in languid anticipation. His hips roll into the air, presented for Hannibal, who he loves beyond comprehension, who loves him just as dearly, who he knows will not deny him and who for all his carefully curated senses finds Will the most delicious thing of all, movement in his body and music in the whimper that sounds from his lips.

Now it's a worship, as Hannibal leans closer, breath shuddering from him at how wanton Will is, how much he wants this. Hands soft against the curve of his ass, down to his thighs and back up to spread Will again, leaning in and parting his lips to taste him.

Will shivers. More leverage here to arch and push and beg against Hannibal, against his mouth and seeking hands.

"Let me hear you," Hannibal insists, gentle nuzzling against trembling thighs as he kisses there too, ducks his head to catch Will’s fingers against his lips as he strokes himself. Displayed, begging with every angle of his body, and Hannibal cannot deny him.

He pushes his tongue in deep, spreading Will with it, drawing teeth just gently to graze sensitive flushed skin as he consumes him, deliberate and slow, takes Will’s sighs and moans and eager arching.

Entirely beautiful and entirely his.

Hannibal hardly needs to ask to hear Will’s sounds, from high aching whimpers to low guttural groans, he is a symphony of voice and breath made tangible in the ceaseless undulations of his body. He presses forward, chest across the bed and an arm out in front of him, fingers wrapped white-knuckled in the sheets, his other hand still only scarcely caressing himself. His hips match the movements of Hannibal’s mouth, legs spreading wider when he works his tongue in deeply, bending needy and eager when he draws away.

“God,” Will breathes, trembling now, his thighs and his arms, his voice voice. “You know,” he adds, a rough swallow interrupting his words, “you were my first. Inside me. And - fuck - like this. My only.”

The words are a prayer, an exaltation that falls from English and into raw emotion as he moans into the sheets, senseless, heart racing so fast that the sound of his own pulse is like a rush of waves against his ears.

“My only,” he swears again, and his fingers splay against the sheets before gripping tightly again when Hannibal kisses slowly against him.

Hannibal pauses, keeps his lips parted as his tongue lazily works against the quivering skin.

“Yours,” he murmurs, just loud enough for Will to register, enough for Will to make a gentle kitten-sound of pleasure. Then Hannibal brings his hand down to gently coax Will’s away from himself, so he can stroke there instead, deliberate and slow, just out of time with how his tongue plunges into and out of Will until the other is shaking with it.

It’s always a delicate balance, this precipice of pleasure Hannibal holds Will over, careful to know when to pull back, to know the days when Will wants to be entirely obliterated with just hands and lips, to be pliant when Hannibal enters him, to enjoy it that way.

Today, Will wants everything. Wants his body and his nerves and his senses pulled so taut they vibrate, before he finds release.

“Oh God, Hannibal, please -”

Close, then, so close, and Hannibal relents with his mouth but not his hand, to watch the slow waves of undulation as Will arches his back and relaxes it, over and over as his hips press forward into Hannibal’s hand. Will keeps his own hand near, close enough to let his fingers rest over Hannibal’s wrapped around him, to feel the movement of his wrist, carried through in the long strokes that keep him satisfied and wanting all at once.

He doesn’t need to be asked not to finish yet, he knows and wants to draw this out as long as he can. From the beach earlier, with Hannibal spread marvelous and golden before him, through the quick grabs in the shower, legs pressed together at dinner, to this - here, now - and longer still, as long as he can last, gasping past open lips against the bed.

“Inside me,” Will shivers. “Hannibal, I want -”

A blush, a quiet laugh, overwhelmed and dizzy even as Hannibal draws him back from the edge.

“I want to feel you inside me,” he murmurs, delighting in the devious, soft smile he receives for his brazenness.

“Beautiful, demanding boy,” Hannibal murmurs, kissing against the small of Will’s back before letting him go and gently turning him to lie on his back again, stretched out and languid, groaning softly as his spine returns to its resting position, comfortable.

Hannibal moves off the bed to shuck his pants, a careless motion and quick, before he returns to press up against Will, duck his head to kiss under his jaw, to murmur sweet words in a language Will doesn’t speak but - regardless - understands when Hannibal uses it. The soft tilts of it, the gentle turns, the sweet lilt of the way it moves against his skin.

“Thank you,” he murmurs after a moment, in English, “for taking me on a date.”

Hannibal’s smile is soft, amused when he looks up at Will again, when he leans in to kiss him as he settles between his legs and feels Will draw his knees up around him in a comfortable sprawl back. His arms slide loose over Hannibal’s shoulders, holding him near, and his eyes flutter closed as Hannibal begins to press slowly into him.

“Thank you for letting me stare shamelessly at you in a suit,” responds Will with a grin that he buries against Hannibal’s neck. His body stretches, hips shifting to accommodate, to ease the pressure that he feels wonderfully sharp up through the base of his spine. “We should,” he adds, eyes blinking wide again as he presses a hand against Hannibal’s cheek. “We should do that more often. Tempting, though, to wall up here with you forever instead.”

His smile spreads beneath the kiss that Hannibal sinks into, his weight heavy, familiar above Will’s smaller body. He loops a leg over his hip, heel digging gently into the curve of Hannibal’s thigh, and Will laughs into his shoulder as an ecstatic shiver trickles up the length of his back.

“We have that,” he sighs, the soft chuckle still lightening his words. “Forever. Us. The rest of our lives. It’s absurd, isn’t it?”

Hannibal groans, chases soft sounds from Will with fluttering kisses to his lips, his cheek.

“Perfect,” he sighs.

Just them. Always just them. Even in the office when Will had been so reluctant, but had gone anyway, on the basement when he had wanted, needed, to do something and did it, throughout the quiet rooms of Baltimore, between the warm, snuffling creatures on the bed in Wolf Trap.

Always them. Just them.

“I love you,” he tells him, a gentle reminder, words soft as he pulls out and slowly presses back in again with a catch in his breathing. “Always.”

Will blushes, as ever, and hides his smile, as ever, as the words work their way inside of him, through every synapse and fiber of his body, and he knows them to be true.

“Forever?” he asks anyway, just to feel the answer again.

“Forever,” agrees Hannibal with a kiss that would snare what was left of Will’s breath from him had it not already been merely by his words.

And no more words need be said than that. So many exchanged - countless - in their years together, more even in their years apart, that now the space is full of promise and adoration even without their usage. Will’s arms curl closer around Hannibal’s neck, to feel the lengths of their bodies slide together in a steady rhythm, deep and sure, each movement forward met with a sigh, each shift back a gasp.

“I’m close,” Will laughs, kissing Hannibal’s shoulder when it nears him, his neck, his cheek, slipping his arms free to cradle his face in both hands and bring their mouths together. “Please, Hannibal…”

A soft kiss, another, over and over until Will is shaking and Hannibal ducks his head, brings his hands down to hold Will against the small of his back and arch him up off the bed. He kisses his chest, in the middle, feeling the hammering of his heart alive and strong within, living, breathing, entirely his own.

_I would eat your heart._

He shallows his thrusts, feels his eyes closing as his own pleasure builds so close to the surface, and relishes in the cry Will makes when he cums, hot against his stomach before Hannibal follows him over, lifting his hips a little, holding him close, still.

He feels the cool fingers in his hair before he parts his lips from the sweaty skin beneath them with a sigh. When he looks up he’s smiling, eyes wide, bright, entirely adoring.

“So,” he sighs, swallows, crawls closer over Will as he lets him rest against the bed once more. “Coffee and records?”

Will spreads stretching, expression contorted into one of relief and amusement as he does so, finally relaxing with a hum and smoothing Hannibal’s hair back from his face again. He considers the question for a long moment - in truth distracted entirely by the flushed, human beauty of the man watching him with such profound satisfaction - before he grins again.

“It’s nearly midnight,” Will answers, rubbing a hand along the back of his eyes before turning onto his side to face Hannibal, kisses peppered lightly between his slowing breaths. “You want coffee now?”

“And records.”

“And records,” Will grins. “You want to stay up all night with me?” He tilts their lips together again, musing lightly. “Like college, Christ.”

“Yes.” Hannibal decides, lips tilting into a wider grin, turning to nuzzle against Will with utter contentment, pure almost impossible joy. He kisses him again. Once. Twice. Chases Will’s fingers to kiss the tips, before he stands, finds the pants he normally sleeps in and pulls them on over bare skin, padding back to the kitchen and through to the glass door, opening it and catching the little bundle as she flies through at his legs.

He holds her close, nuzzles against her warm belly, against the little puppy feet that press to his face, before delivering her to Will, square on his chest.

Then he turns to select a record, setting it, and only adjusting the needle when he hears the coffee machine start in the kitchen, the smile on his face wide, warm.

Happy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let me go,” Will whispers.
> 
> "No."

It doesn’t always start with a bang.

Will knows how to avoid those things. The way blood fills the spaces in the cutting board when he’s gutting a fish, marking lines in scarlet so dark it’s nearly black. The way a glass sounds when it breaks, and its pieces rock flashing against the floor. The slam of the screen door, cracking into place, before Will fixed the hinge on it so that it would only slip silently closed.

It doesn’t take the backfiring of a car or the clicking of little paws against the floor. It doesn’t take the sight of Hannibal preparing dinner, knife in hand.

Sometimes it just happens.

It begins in his hands. No matter the smothering heat of the air, they grow cold across his palms, fingertips numb even when he splays and shakes them to regain feeling. Like the spread of ice over water, his vessels stiffen, up his arms, and all at once a soreness creeps across his joints, stiffening. His lungs fill, or empty - both, all at once, and no matter how deeply he tries to take in air or how quickly, they seem to deplete a little more each time, as if there’s no room inside, like water filling a sinking ship.

He is dizzy. Hands pressed to the counter, he ducks his head and closes his eyes, as if by doing so he can take himself out of wherever he’s gone. Take himself out, full stop, instead. Even oxygen snags thick in his throat, jaw so tight it hurts, mouth dry as if filled by metal shards. It tastes like blood. Like gunpowder. Like mirror shards.

“Fuck.”

He wonders how long it would take to chew through the grapes in the garden - if he could swallow them at all - and let them ferment in his roiling belly, in lieu of liquor.

He misses, for a moment, how the wooden counter at Wolf Trap would creak when he grasped it too hard. The unyielding marble beneath his hands now is unlikely to be moved by this as Will is. He wishes, then, to be like that instead. Unmoved. By anything. Surely an empty shell is better than an overflowing pitcher? Surely the waste Will makes is far less welcome than the cool emptiness of potential?

He slams the side of his fist down, just for the sensation of skittering nerves, to his elbow, to his shoulder. From outside, he hears the soft whine of their little dog, Chiot immediately aware, like sensing a storm on the breeze pulling from the ocean. He does not go to open the door for her, he stands paralyzed until his hand lifts again and he strikes it down.

It isn’t anger, it isn’t fuelled by a heat Will can’t control. This is something else. A blind determination perhaps, a new rhythm to associate with instead of the white noise he has now. Heavy thuds, again and again, eyes glassy as he watches the counter, still unmoving, hears the frantic scratching at the window. A new kind of white noise, and Will doesn’t want that either, he needs to escape that.

He turns his wrist and strikes down instead, against knuckles, and the pain numbs him for a moment, like a blanket over a speaker.

He doesn’t manage to do it again. 

"Will, please listen."

No desperation there, either, just Hannibal's calm words, his warm hand folded over Will’s hand, fingers protecting his knuckles from another assault, but even then not holding him back, merely asking that he try.

The words are garbled, as if spoken underwater, and understood only because Will has heard them before. Only when he lifts his eyes to Hannibal beside him does he feel the vertigo threatening to sweep the ground out from beneath his feet. He hasn’t been breathing. Maybe he isn’t even now. If he could hold his breath a little longer, maybe. If he could break the vessel and let it empty, maybe.

Whatever look carries in his eyes is enough to line a furrow across Hannibal’s brow. Will parts his lips as if to speak but what can he say? What is there to say, really? That he shouldn’t be here. Neither of them, really, should be.

A little deeper.

Another shot.

An inch lower.

A decade more.

“Let me go,” Will whispers.

"No."

No other touches come, not yet, not with Will poised for another sharp drive of bone against stone, as though testing the bounds of his human capability, knowing it will drive him to blood and less breath and a lighter head. He wants it, suddenly, to be incapacitated, untouchable, restrained.

He wants, just as much, to feel the same warmth now that almost radiates from Hannibal's hand to his own.

Finally, another hand settles against the curve of his lower back, splayed and supporting, almost hot through his shirt. He still has not moved his arm, curved painfully now in this position, he has not fought the grip on him, but he has yet to surrender to it.

"Will.” A sigh, close enough to be felt. "Step back."

Will jerks from the nearness, or tries, only to find it inescapable. As much as it’s always been, he figures. They never had a chance, either of them, for what they played at - quiet winter mornings and loud nights, built on whispered half-truths and blood. They were never meant to survive each other.

His lungs batter against his ribs, the bones driving sharp into his skin, scraping raw with every breath that won’t come. He turns his hand as if to free himself. He turns it to feel his sinews tangle. He hopes it fucking breaks.

Panic. Fear. Anger. All those things he’s lived with longer than he’s lived with their opposites. All those words that have been muted with languid days and gentle touches. All those words that have never really gone away. Hannibal moves with him when by incident only Will steps back from where he stood against the counter, and blue eyes flash stormy, furious, tempered by brute force.

A shutter, pulled closed against a hurricane.

“Please let me go,” he attempts again. “I would like to go.”

"Where will you go?" Hannibal asks him softly. He has seen Will this way before, a sort of nagging desperation to punish himself or remind himself of something. Once in a while, Will had managed to settle the storm, rarer still, he has allowed Hannibal to.

"You can't stop me going."

"No," Hannibal agrees, and he is there as Will takes another involuntary step back, there to press his thumb to Will’s wrist, to drive weight to his hand until his fist uncurls and Hannibal slips their fingers together. "I was merely asking where."

"So you can find me?" Will hisses quietly.

"So I can go with you."

“I didn’t ask -”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“I know.”

Will’s jaw clenches hard enough he’s sure his teeth will shatter, jagged bits of bone that will push into his gums and fill his mouth with blood. He would swallow them, like glass, and relish as they sliced neat as scalpels through his throat. Hannibal does not relent, meeting each step, he does not take his hand away from where their fingers are laced.

“I’m going to swim.” And hope a riptide catches. “Or walk.” Until a car takes a blind corner too fast. “Or drink.”

There it is, and with a sudden breath, Will is full again, but it does no more than sink into that gaping abyss spreading deeper within.

“Haven’t you done enough already?” Will asks, and the words burn like battery acid when he whispers them.

At this, Hannibal says nothing. He can say nothing. Everything he has done he has tried to justify to himself, to Will, over and over and even in that he knows that he is wrong. He knows that perhaps it would have been better had Will shot him properly. It would have been better had they gone when Hannibal had suggested it. It would have been better had they never met at all.

Will’s skin is hot again, though Hannibal knows he does not feel it. Knows the insects that crawl beneath his skin feel like ice and bile.

He turns his head, just enough to nuzzle Will’s temple, enough to breathe him in, and close his eyes. Enough. He has done more than enough.

Will’s breath is strangled, wheezing tight in his throat, and sighs loose on a small, frail note as the freeze inside him starts to splinter. He closes his eyes and swallows thick, and nearly collapsing into the man at his side - always, always at his side, when he’s wanted him there or not - Will buries his face into Hannibal’s shoulder. A silent sob shudders his shoulders, wracking rough through his tired body.

“I -”

Their hands loosen, but only so that Hannibal can slide strong arms around the smaller man. Will draws his hands up between them, tucked between their chests, shaking fingers spreading to warm against Hannibal’s chest. The panic ebbs as suddenly as it washed over him, a flood leaving detritus in its wake.

“I didn’t mean it,” he whispers. “Don’t go, please. I’m sorry.”

Hannibal just holds him, a silent promise not to go, anywhere, ever, not from him, never from him. He soothes Will’s shuddering with a broad palm, up and down his back as he kisses the side of Will’s face, over and over, soft reassuring things that pull sounds from Will’s throat.

"I love you," he sighs.

It is rare that Will falls to this gripping panic, now. Once in a while, nightmares will snare him and he will wake screaming, or fighting, or frozen in cold sweat and unreachable. Once in a while.

Hannibal shifts his weight, enough to bring Will closer, to bring his hands up to stroke his hair, now, carding through the soft curls.

"Shall I let Chiot inside?" He asks, and his tone curls with the promise of a smile. Always genuine, never malicious or deceptive. Not anymore.

Will shakes his head, only because he’s not sure he could stay standing if Hannibal goes now. Wary that his anger will drive the man to leave, his instability prove too toxic, his damage too great for both to bear knowing how much of his own Hannibal holds in stoic silence. Those moments are no easier, turned inward rather than out as Will’s tend to be, times when Will can look at the man and not see him, bringing him back with touches that send shivers over skin that for too long grew unused to any such sensation.

They live broken, fragments of repeated shattering placed carefully back together by the other. Now and then a piece falls free and the structure grows weak. Every time, the other moves to make it whole again and keep it steady.

“I love you,” Will tells him, half-laughing, half-sobbing, the sounds so much the same as to be indistinguishable.

Only when the involuntary trembling of his body eases, only when he grows lax - bruised and sore from the sudden onslaught - does Hannibal regard him with patient warmth, and gentle curiosity.

This time, Will nods, smearing a hand across his face and all the scars made slick with tears. “Let her in,” he murmurs. “She’s worried. I didn’t mean to.”

Soft hands soothe his hair, slip down to stroke thumbs over the tears still pooled warm beneath Will’s eyes. They are wiped away but not ignored, they are caressed as every part of Will is, always, by the man before him. Hannibal leans in to kiss his forehead, a soft breath against it when he pulls back, gentle fingers beneath Will’s chin to lift it so he can kiss him properly. It is soft, not demanding, just a reminder.

Then, without a word, Hannibal steps away, just far enough to reach the door and slide it open. Chiot trips over herself coming in, little whines and the endlessly whirring tail as she clambers over to Will and finds herself immediately gathered up against the man’s chest. 

“I’m sorry,” Will tells her, smiles when she starts to lick his face, always open in her affection for them both, never caring for scars or frowns or upset, always there to lick and nuzzle and curl up warm against them both. “Spoiled girl.”

Hannibal watches their dog shower Will with her endless devotion and returns to set a hand against his neck, just a gentle support, as he moves to stand before him.

“I think,” he says, “jambalaya for dinner.”

Will smiles despite the physical discomfort still vibrating through his body, like a bell rung too hard. He buries his nose into the soft fur, breathes in the earthy scent of the little dog, and finds himself further soothed.

She is good for him. A familiar creature after he went so long without, always accepting, with little care for anything but being fed and paid attention to. He can do that.

Hannibal is good for him. A friend despite the agonies they wrought on each other, a support when Will cannot make himself stand, with little care for the moods that rise rapid as a summer storm, and seeking only that Will try to accept what Hannibal offers. He can do that.

The puppy is cradled happily between them as Will leans up for another kiss, her tongue scraping one cheek, Hannibal’s fingers gentle against the other.

What is there to say, really?

“I love you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He will admit it to no one but he was scared in prison. Daily, nothing but emptiness and silence, the knowledge of how close he had come to ending Will and how close he had come to taking Hannibal with him. Close, but not enough. Not by several inches and miles and miles of time and space between them.
> 
> He was scared, there. He would wake up in a cold sweat and press his tears into the pillow so the cameras wouldn’t pick up the sound. He had thought of Will.

Hannibal wakes to grey skies and a cool wind seeping from the ocean. He frowns, considering how his impromptu afternoon nap had lasted longer than he had wanted, and pushes himself from the reclining chair in the garden to go back inside.

Will had gone that morning, Chiot riding shotgun in his shuddering truck, little paws up against the window, tongue lolling in doggish joy as Will had pulled away. He had two motors in the back to deliver and one to look in on, a house call for an elderly client. Hannibal checks his watch, and closes the door to the garden with a quiet hiss as it slides across its runner. In truth, Will should be home within the hour, exhausted and covered in oil and grinning like a child as he presents the equally filthy dog to Hannibal to wash before kissing him.

Perhaps a shower, then, to clear the cobwebs from Hannibal’s head. He feels heavy.

So he goes, turning their little radio to the classical station and turning the volume up to carry through past the white noise of the water. He is only several minutes into washing when the music turns to static, a predictable hiss and hum that Hannibal resigns himself to with a sigh. He raises his face to the hot shower stream and breathes out slowly through his nose, pulls back to scrub his face with wide palms and take a breath before he does it again.

He wonders, for a moment, if he had stood too long under the spray, when the shower turns off but the noise continues, an ominous beating of water. And he realizes quickly that the radio is still playing, as it had been, but is muted by the pouring rain outside, marring the sound.

He had been warned, in buying the house, that being on an island was not always the paradise promised in brochures and advertisements. So close to the beach in particular posed special concerns, and though it would take a cataclysm for the water to reach it, the storms all seem to promise just that. It must have been momentous, roiling fast and dark above the sea as it approached, painting the sky dismal black and blotting out the sun to near-night.

Hannibal is glad that he woke when he did, though toweling himself dry now, he supposes it doesn’t really matter.

Through the window where he stands, the normally peaceful waves with their lazy curl now crash towards the shore, foaming like wild horses driven to madness. Standing bare before the shatterproof windows, Hannibal thinks of Poseidon’s watery steeds.

Hannibal thinks of Will.

He always thinks of Will.

Bare feet clicking against the floor, he returns to seek his phone from beside the bed. No voicemails, no missed calls, and no service. The radio skitters to static behind him, and if the clap of thunder overhead is deafening, the silence that follows is crippling.

It is very, very rare that Hannibal gets frightened. Fear is something he had long ago taught his body to metabolize as something other, always used it as energy, used it in his patience and his work. But once in a while, the cold tendrils of fear escape the chasm he shoves it into and locks the latch, circling his heart and stuttering his breathing.

He tempers it, for now, with knowledge of how small the island is, that Will did not have to go off island to any visits today. He is not on his little boat in the middle of the monstrous ocean. He is not lost and alone and -

Another crack of thunder is enough to drive Hannibal to dress. A meticulous selection of nothing at all important. Soft pants and a button down shirt, a thin sweater that Will often favors on top as the air grows more and more chill. He forgoes socks for the moment, uncaring, and goes, instead, to the kitchen.

Coffee. Black. Hot enough to scald his fingers through the mug, and calming enough in its familiar smell and taste to have Hannibal stay still to drink it. He watches the storm. Seeking into the distance, he finds none. The ceiling of clouds meets the sea at a point indiscernible, no scope or scale to gauge how far Hannibal can see. He spreads his fingers along the mug and rests it against his hand, to feel the weight of it, dense and heavy.

It is not the small paper cup afforded him in the mornings, a spoonful of instant and lukewarm water.

It is clouds, endless - boundless, and not dull cement, pulling in tighter daily.

It is the static of the radio, not the unrelenting hum of speakers outside steel and plexiglass, layers on layers.

Hannibal works his tongue over his teeth again and again, a repetitive motion to ground him before he moves to turn the radio off, just the noise of the storm, now, howling around the house. He can only imagine its volume beyond the secured doors and windows that keep so much sound out.

In brief, cold terror, he wonders if he had forgotten to take Chiot with him when he returned, before he remembers that she is with Will, in his truck, somewhere out in that storm. Chiot has never been a fan of storms, but she has rarely been scared of them. She had a tendency to coil up tight and growl, or stand by the window and bark until she couldn’t anymore. Restraining her with affection then was difficult, as she would fight, determined to out-howl the wind.

Hannibal’s hands are shaking.

So he sets the mug aside and rolls his shoulders as he makes his way further into the house, again. Past the immaculately made bed, with one of Will’s jackets tossed across it like an ink stain on a painting. It is so familiar, so common and normal that it tugs Hannibal’s breath to hitch and pushes him to close his eyes, just standing in the middle of the room.

He had been scared in prison.

He will admit it to no one but he was scared in prison. Daily, nothing but emptiness and silence, the knowledge of how close he had come to ending Will and how close he had come to taking Hannibal with him. Close, but not enough. Not by several inches and miles and miles of time and space between them.

He was scared, there. He would wake up in a cold sweat and press his tears into the pillow so the cameras wouldn’t pick up the sound. He had thought of Will.

This is the first time since then that he has felt equally as helpless and it pulls Hannibal’s muscles taut, his lips to part on a displeased huff of air.

What Hannibal did not anticipate was the monotony, years in isolation enough to splinter the carefully maintained walls of his memory, years of no more stimulation than the papers and books they would periodically afford him. No one with him but the kind orderly, who could not dally, and periodic visits to be shown off like a caged animal by Chilton. Nothing given him but his own thoughts, and like copies of copies of copies, those too gradually began to fade.

Until Will came to see him, and suddenly color returned to the world. No matter how deliberately the man had tried to mask his scent, Hannibal found him beneath the cheap aftershave and spritz of citrus. He kept him, in sight and smell and sound, near catatonic for days after to preserve every fold of fabric, every breath.

And Will did not return.

And Hannibal could not lose him again.

He wants to walk, suddenly, out of the house that suddenly seems too small and too barren. Just to the porch. Just to the driveway. Just to the street up the hill. Just to the top of the hill, and nevermind the storm that will whip the palms into a lethal frenzy and nevermind the lightning that will spike them through. He could see Will’s car from there, perhaps, if he’s near.

He should have asked where Will would be today, and then he might know where to look for him. If his truck swerves, if there is a mudslide, Hannibal has no idea where he would start to search, and bile rises thick into his throat.

“Stop.”

To himself, in calm tones and careful articulation, as he had so many times in that cell. Voiced aloud, the command helps soothe down the burning in his chest and the hammering in his ears. Moment after moment it passes to a general nausea, unpleasant but escapable.

He does not fold the jacket up, he leaves it where it is, as he takes the unnecessary path to the other end of the house, patrolling past windows he knows are shut, doors he knows are locked fast. He watches the driveway. He watches the road, what he can see of it, blurred like a watercolor painting in blues and greys and the occasional brown of a tree swung in the wind.

“Start dinner,” he tells himself next, uncaring for the time, how early it is to bother with such a thing. They may lose power. They would need the food then. Hot, if he could keep it that way. Fresh, good to keep a few days if needed. He knows they are stocked on water, in the garage, large drums of the stuff that Will had insisted on, knowing the climates and storms so near the beach from Florida, from childhood.

Everything is tasted. Slivers of vegetables, olive oil for the fish, the rinds of fruit peeled in perfect spirals, spices scattered and ground. Each flavor sparks against his tongue, almost overpowering in intensity when so quickly, his body braced to exist in colorless grey and beige. He does it to keep busy. He does it to remind himself that nevermind the fading tones of the world outside, he is not snared in that limbo again.

Stopping only to pace to the window, stopping only to retrieve his phone, stopping only every few minutes to wonder, he works as steadily as he can. It is not the graceful dance with which he usually conducts himself, it is faltering, stumbling and unsteady.

He wonders if Will is somewhere safe, waiting this out no matter how long it takes.

He wonders if Will is stuck in the mud that each road becomes in even a light rain, forced to walk with Chiot against his chest.

He wonders if -

_Stop._

He worries that -

_Stop._

He fears.

Until above the wailing wind and clattering thunder, a door slams shut.

Hannibal has to press his hands to the counter for a moment, two, to stop them shaking, before he fumbles with the apron strings and tugs the thing away, uncaring when it slips from the counter where he places it. 

Their garage is not attached to the house by an internal door, though it lies side by side with the living room wall. To access it, one must go through the sliding ranch doors into the garden, and around to the door leading into the vast space, meant to be enough for two cars. There is, in truth, barely enough for the truck, the rest taken up by water, storage, old motors and new ones, tools and parts and folded boxes, plastic containers and paper bags.

Hannibal has the presence of mind to close the ranch slider behind himself when he goes, uncaring for the rain, for the cold ground beneath bare feet. He pulls open the garage door and steps inside. The truck sits dripping where it’s parked, water slicking the smooth concrete and running in rivers towards the main garage door, now closed.

Will looks disheveled, bending over the bed of the truck seeking a stray tool, perhaps, or checking on the tarp. Chiot is still in the front, barking and whining and pawing at the window, and as hard as it pulls against Hannibal’s heart to leave her there, not comforted or touched or soothed, he goes to Will first.

“The damn truck got a flat two streets over, took forever to crawl it home, I -”

Hannibal kisses him, both hands on either side of his face, pulling him close as Hannibal presses his weight against the wet truck, uncaring that the water seeps through his pants and to his skin, uncaring for anything but the fact that Will is here, alive, in his hands, and home.

"Hey," Will laughs, with what little room he's given to breathe before another kiss seals hot against his mouth. His smile wanes, eyes opening despite their nearness, and he lifts a hand to rest on Hannibal's fingers. The other goes to his cheek, unsettlingly cold, and smooths still damp hair back from his brow.

He doesn't ask what happened. He knows, in that same strange way that Will always knows. And just as readily, he is aware intrinsically that what Hannibal wants is this.

Confirmation.

Consolation.

Comfort.

With a sigh, Will lunges to meet Hannibal's lips, and Hannibal presses him back harder against the truck. Little eager yelps and wild wet wind fade under the sound of Hannibal's hammering heart. Harder, more, he drives his kiss against Will's mouth, his cheek, lower, more, teeth and sucking kisses to taste Will's pulse quickening under rain-slick skin.

They move in tandem. Hannibal grasps the back of his investigator’s thigh, soaked through, as Will lifts his leg to curl around his doctor's hip. Beneath their furtive, furious grinding, the busted truck squeaks uneasy, and neither pay it mind.

After a moment, Hannibal’s mind stops howling, and sounds return as they should. Will panting against him, their little dog scrabbling at the window to be given attention, and Hannibal laughs - a helpless, almost desperate thing. He presses his forehead to Will’s before reaching to open the passenger door for Chiot to jump down and hurry to greet him.

Hannibal leans against Will with all his weight, taking in the beating heart and soft words and wet hair to remind himself that he is safe, he is here, he is not a phantom in his memory palace, slipping through walls and tormenting Hannibal to madness.

“I was worried,” he says, unnecessary and quiet, too quiet. He turns his face into Will’s palm when he touches him again. They should go home, properly home, lock up and bunker down and stay, safe, together. But he can’t even bring himself to move beyond his hands shifting shaking over Will’s form. He needs to know, in every way he can understand, that Will is safe and with him again. A rough nuzzle, another, and Hannibal kisses Will again, deeper but gentler, just as desperate to taste him.

Will accepts every kiss that brushes fierce against his mouth, parting his lips to welcome Hannibal’s tongue against his own, moaning when teeth drag lightly over his lower lip. No fear grips him, no confusion. He is pliant and relaxed, soft and reassuring, everything Hannibal needs without saying a word.

He works his fingers through Hannibal’s hair with a tug, just enough that Hannibal gasps. Even this, scarcely pain but raw intensity, grounds him back in the now. They are free to do this, both, escaping scarred but standing from their own prisons. As if in mirror to the storm outside swallowing the sky, Will’s pupils swell to edge out blue when their eyes meet before collapsing into another kiss.

“Here?” Will asks.

“Here,” Hannibal answers.

With a laugh, Will rests back against the truck and allows Hannibal to tug him free of his wet clothing, shirt tossed to the bed, shoes kicked free, pants and boxers shucked to his thighs and lower, pooled around his feet. Bare. Willing. Welcoming with warm arms around Hannibal’s neck, keeping his doctor’s mouth against his throat and groaning when their hips shove together.

It is almost youthful, a vigor that is born of fearing that one has no time for anything - especially pleasures - as they grow up. Hannibal presses Will back harder, kissing against his neck and chest, sinking gracefully to the dirty floor on his knees to take Will into his mouth without even a thought to tease or suggest something more appropriate. Their bed, perhaps. Home, at least. It doesn’t matter.

He holds Will still as the other bucks up against him, and then changes his mind and lets him move, eyes up, dark where they hood and watch Will. Devoted and adoring and relieved, to the marrow of his bones, to have him home safe.

Hannibal hums low when Will drops a hand into his hair and curls his fingers over his scalp. He shivers, makes the effort to hollow his cheeks more, eyes closing in pleasure as he brings pleasure. He wants to tell Will he is so happy he’s here, that he does not want to let him go until the storm passes and days after, just to make sure. He wants to and he never will. He will not cage the man in his own home for his own insecurities to be fed and sated.

He contents himself with tasting Will against him, slick and salty, and so familiar.

Will chokes back a laugh, sighing Hannibal’s name. He spreads a hand across his own face, up into his dripping hair to push it back from his face and watch, utterly fond, as Hannibal gives him this for no other reason than he can. Will rocks himself to hardness over Hannibal’s curved tongue, between swollen lips, against the back of his mouth. Setting his hands on Will’s thighs, not to control but to feel the strong pull of muscle, he watches, rapt, as Will’s bearded cheeks fill with scarlet heat.

He pulls his cock dripping from Hannibal’s lips, and shudders a moan when he pushes it past again. Slow and steady, savoring, Hannibal spreads his tongue wide against the thrumming pulse. He sighs pleasure through his nose when a viscous, salty fluid drips into his mouth. His fingers curl, and the delicate press of nails into trembling skin breaks Will’s voice into a whimper.

Without asking, without needing to ask, Will slips his length free again - standing rigid, now, shining slick - and he turns, arms folded over the edge of the truck’s bed. He holds his bottom lip between his teeth and sends a glance over his shoulder to the man on his knees, and with only a nod, brings Hannibal to his feet.

Here.

Don’t stop.

A sigh from Hannibal, a laugh that he presses between Will’s shoulders as he steps up behind him, presses him closer against the wet truck. Surely uncomfortable, entirely unlike them and yet – he laughs again and kisses against Will’s neck, bringing his fingers up for the man to suck for him as Hannibal watches, sleepy-eyed and contented. His heart has slowed again, to the controlled pace he allows. It feels good, to be held this way by a man who needs do little more than look at him.

He promises, soft and quiet, that he will treat Will to every form of pleasure, after this. That he will keep him in bed and pamper him with dinner and breakfast and coffee. That he will touch and stroke and kiss him to shivering pleasure, that he will hold him as they both doze to the sound of the storm around them.

“Do you remember,” Will asks, as Hannibal draws his fingers free to slip down to stroke against Will’s hole, careful to nudge and press only when he arches his back and gives silent permission. “The storm in Baltimore that knocked the power out for three days?”

“When I had my own furry storm within the house that week? I do.” Hannibal kisses against Will’s ear, licks a tickling line around the rim of it and delights in the shivering it draws.

Will grins, twisting away from the man’s teasing tongue, rubbing his cheek against his folded arms and watching, eyes hooded, the motion of Hannibal behind him. “Remember when all we did, all day, was lay on the couch and kiss until our mouths were numb?”

“I do,” Hannibal answers again, his own smile lingering. He draws a breath in echo to the one Will sucks in, shifting in a slow rocking motion to work Hannibal’s fingers deeper, groaning when he feels them spread.

It has taken them a long time to speak of Baltimore, and longer still of Wolf Trap. Old lives that for many years were best forgotten, the way one thinks of dreams too happy, too untroubled to ever exist, and wanting not to be troubled by their unreality, they are forced away.

“You were so patient,” Will recalls. “Maggie loved you. She looked for you, whenever you would leave the house. She’d whine until I found something that smelled like you, and let her lay on it. You were good with them,” he says softly. “With us.”

Hannibal relishes the words as much as the little moan that comes right after. Will bends further and allows his voice to echo in the bed of the truck as he laughs and presses a hand there to balance himself.

Hannibal remembers. That bittersweet nostalgia had clung to him for years. He had several of the dogs in his memory palace, meandering in and out, never stopping for more than a gentle stroke of his hand - they were not there for him. He had populated the rooms Will occupied with everything that made the man happy. If he could not do so in life, he would do so in his mind. At least there they could live properly.

And now they have this.

Now they have each other, and a dog and fishing poles and a record player. Now they have this, and it is warm as those rooms in his mind never were.

“I love you,” he tells Will, kissing rough against the back of his neck. “I love you.”

He brings a hand back to fumble with his belt and unzip his pants, stroke, though he hardly has need. He lines up against Will and waits for him to shiver, to push back and relax and groan softly for it before he starts to push.

For a long moment, they are quiet and noisome all at once. No words occupy the space between them, but they fill it instead with gentle gasps and whimpered moans, sounds that express as much as words ever might. Will works himself back just as steadily as Hannibal presses in, filling the younger man whose fingers tighten against the truck, darkening the blush that spreads bright down to his neck, his shoulders. Accepting and giving, taking and filling, until Hannibal’s hips are flush with Will’s backside, and thick curls of hair tickle between his legs.

“God,” Will groans. He tries to mute it between his teeth, clenched and half-grinning, but it does little good and he relents with a long, aching moan when Hannibal starts to move inside him. They find their pace in long, deep thrusts, driven with a wonderful and agonizing laxity, rocking forward and back as the other rocks back and forward, meeting each other in complementary rhythm, perfectly synced.

“I’m glad,” Will whispers, head bowed against his arm as Hannibal holds him against the truck. “I’m glad you came for me.”

Hannibal presses his forehead between Will’s shoulders. Around them the rain seems to increase, the wind vicious and cruel and soon, Hannibal knows, another hammering of thunder to come,

"I'm glad you came back to me," he tells Will, words barely voiced but enough to soothe the hideousness within that coiled cold through his entire being when Will was gone. When he had feared him lost. When he had feared so much.

He draws his lips between Will’s shoulders, kissing dry and chaste and loving against him as he rocks his hips harder into Will. Meeting his groans with soft sounds of his own, Hannibal is just as needy, just as pleased as Will arches back against him. Around them, finally, thunder, enough to rattle the house and course through their bones and somewhere from beneath the truck, a little series of yelps that send Will into peals of laughter, and Hannibal into silent shaking of the same.

"Always," Will sighs, as his voice settles low. He will always return. To their home. To Hannibal. To this intimacy, minds and hearts and bodies enmeshed.

_What would I do without you?_

Will loops his arms back around Hannibal's neck, body bending beautifully to allow this primal proximity. He is wanted and claimed, sought and captured, held fast now and marked with every sharp thrust. Hannibal rests a hand beneath Will's chin to tilt the younger man's head back against his shoulder, and the other skims his scarred stomach to snare his throbbing length.

Hannibal takes the weight of the younger man against him, holding him steady when his knees weaken, indulging when he begs softly, sweetly, for _more, please, yes, Hannibal, I love you_. His skin is hot now where Hannibal touches him, alive and flushed, healthy and whole. Furious consummation, animal need, reassures both of their own reality, hard fucking to fill his investigator who grips a hand against the truck to steady himself when his own release nearly sends him to the floor. Will chokes, gasping, still and shuddering, as hot spurts spatter to the floor, and drip down Hannibal’s fingers still grasping him.

Hannibal holds him and rides through his own euphoria, lips parted and eyes closed and brows drawn in helpless pleasure and genuine, cold, inescapable relief. He holds them both until Will stops shaking, until he leans back against Hannibal and Hannibal carefully slips free.

He laughs again, watching the destruction wrought on the poor truck already immobilized by its flat tire. He laughs when Chiot makes another fussy noise as the storm rages. Carefully, leaving Will to pull his pants back up, he restores his own and bends to retrieve the little dog from under the car, soothing her trembling and accepting the reluctant licking.

"Home," Hannibal murmurs, eyes up to Will again. "I can set dinner on and then I do not want to let go of you again."

Will steps close, wet shirt and shoes in one hand, pants settled on his hips but hanging loose. He pets lightly behind Chiot’s ears, strokes through Hannibal’s hair with the same, and leans to kiss him with a sleepy smile.

“If we’re unlucky, we’ll be living much closer to the water by the time the mud stops,” he says with a snort and a quick grin. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be stuck inside for a few days, with nowhere else to be.”

Hannibal returns his smile, brushing their noses softly together to nuzzle into another kiss, and another. Because he can. Because Will is here. Because they are here, together.

“Let us hope for luck, then,” Hannibal says, and Will’s smile widens as he turns towards the house.

“Just like old times.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Sempiternal** : (adj.) everlasting, eternal.


End file.
